INTER 


UC-NI 


*B    3Dh    5b7 


t-  x  i 


-  *e*& 


DALLAS  LORE  SHARP 


GIFT   OF 


EDUCATION  DEPT 


THE  FOX  SPARROWS'  BATH  (page  56) 


Qtafure 


WINTER 


BY 


DALLAS  LORE  SHARP 

// 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR,"  "THE  LAY  OF 

THE  LAND,"   "  THE   FACE    OF   THE   FIELDS,"   ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 

ROBERT  BRUCE  HORSFALL 


BOSTON   NEW  YORK    CHICAGO 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 
C&e  KtoetfiiiUe  JJregg 


kX 


COPYRIGHT,    1905,    BY   DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE    AND   COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,    1906,    BY   THE    CHAPPLE   PUBLISHING   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    IQIO,    1911,    BY   PERRY   MASON   COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,    1912,    BY   THE   GOLDEN   RULE   PUBLISHING   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    1912,    BY   THE   CENTURY   COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,    1908,    I9II,    1912,   BY   DALLAS   LORE   SHARP 

ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Gfft 

H.D-.LISQU1ST 
eDUCATION  DEFT. 


TO 
THE  FOUR  SMALL  BOYS 

ON  MULLEIN  HILL 
WHO  HUNT  THE  SNOW  WITH  MB 


. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION ix 

I.   HUNTING  THE  SNOW 1 

II.   THE  TURKEY  DRIVE 15 

III.  WHITE-FOOT 29 

IV.  A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  SEE  THIS  WINTER       .      .  39 
V.   CHRISTMAS  IN  THE  WOODS 46 

VI.   CHICKADEE 61 

VII.   A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  Do  THIS  WINTER       .      .    74 

VIII.  THE  MISSING  TOOTH 80 

IX.   THE  PECULIAR  TOSSUM 94 

X.   A  FEBRUARY  FRESHET 105 

XI.  A  BREACH  IN  THE  BANK         112 

XII.  A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  HEAR  THIS  WINTER  .      .  123 

XIII.  THE  LAST  DAY  OF  WINTER 129 

NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS    ,  ...  .137 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  Fox  SPARROWS'  BATH .  Frontispiece 

SKUNK  TRACKS 3 

CAT  TRACKS 4 

TRACKS  OF  HARE  JOINED  BY  DOGS 6 

"IN  A  BURST  OF  SPEED  ACROSS  THE  OPEN  FIELD"    ...  7 

DOG  TRACKS  IN  FOUR  INCHES  OF  SNOW 7 

TRACKS  OF  THE  WHITE-FOOTED  MOUSE 9 

"A  GRAY  SQUIRREL  WITH  A  RED  SQUIRREL  AT  HIS  HEELS  "  .  11 

Fox  TRACKS 12 

MUSKRAT  TRAIL 14 

"INTO  THE  AIR  THEY  WENT" 26 

WHITE-FOOT —  " IN  THE  WINTER  GALES" 33 

"FIVE  WEE  MICE" 35 

WHITE-FOOT  AND  THE  HICKORY- NUTS 38 

A  VIREO'S  NEST  IN  WINTER 40 

"  WIND-SWEEPINGS  "    .      .  .'     .      .      .      .      .      .      .41 

TOSSUM  IN  THE  PERSIMMON  TREE    .  ••".      .      .      ...      .  50 

WEASEL — "WATCHING  ME  FROM  BETWEEN  THE  STICKS"      .  58 

"  A  CHICKADEE  !  " 62 

"  DOING   THE   EXCAVATING   THEMSELVES  " 69 


viii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FOOD  FOR  THE  NUTHATCHES  ...  0  =  ....  76 
THE  MOURNING-CLOAK  BUTTERFLY,  AN  EARLY  FLITTER  .  77 
A  RUFFED  GROUSE  TRAIL  .  .  ..*...  .78 
"THE  SNOW  HAD  MELTED  FROM  THE  RIVER  MEADOWS"  .  .  80 
"  CARRYING  A  BIG  BOB-TAILED  VOLE  OUT  OF  MY  '  MOWING  '  "  85 
"  SCURRYING  THROUGH  THE  TOPS  OF  SOME  PITCH  PINES  "  .  .  90 
"  ALL  THE  AFTERNOON  THE  CROWS  HAVE  BEEN  GOING  OVER  "  93 

THE  DUCK-BILLED  PLATYPUS,  OR  DUCK-BILL 97 

THE  ECHIDNA,  OR  PORCUPINE  ANT-EATER 98 

"  STANDING  BEFORE  A  LARGE  'POSSUM  "  < 99 

"  OUT  SHE  SPILLED  AND  NINE  LITTLE  'POSSUMS  WITH  HER "  100 
"  A  GREAT  BLUE  HERON  WOULD  BEAT  PONDEROUSLY  ACROSS  "  106 
MEADOW  MOUSE  —  "!NA  DRIFTING  CATBIRD'S  NEST"  .  .  109 
"A  LITTLE  FIGURE  IN  YELLOW  OIL-SKINS  "  .....  114 
"  DREW  A  LIMP  LITTLE  FORM  OUT  OF  THE  WATER  "  .  .  .  121 
QUAIL — "  ONE  OF  THE  COVEY  CALLING  THE  FLOCK  TOGETHER"  127 
"A  FLOCK  OF  ROBINS  DASHING  INTO  THE  CEDARS  "  .  .  .  131 
PUSSY- WILLOWS  AND  WATERCRESS  .  .  .  .  •  .  •  132 
"  THE  HAZELNUT  BUSHES  ARE  IN  BLOOM  "  .  ...»  .  133 
BLUEBIRD  —  "  LIKE  A  BIT  OF  SUMMER  SKY  " 135 


A 


INTRODUCTION 

S  in  The  Fall  of  the  Year,  so  here  in  Winter, 
the  second  volume  of  this  series,  I  have  tried 
•  by  story  and  sketch  and  suggestion  to  catch 
the  spirit  of  the  season.  In  this  volume  it  is  the 
large,  free,  strong,  fierce,  wild  soul  of  Winter  which 
I  would  catch,  the  bitter  boreal  might  that,  out  of 
doors,  drives  all  before  it;  that  challenges  all  that  is 
wild  and  fierce  and  strong  and  free  and  large  within 
us,  till  the  bounding  red  blood  belts  us  like  an  equa- 
tor, and  the  glow  of  all  the  tropics  blooms  upon  our 
faces  and  down  into  the  inmost  of  our  beings. 

Winter  within  us  means  vitality  and  purpose  and 
throbbing  life ;  and  without  us  in  our  fields  and 
woods  it  means  widened  prospect,  the  storm  of  bat- 
tle, the  holiness  of  peace,  the  poetry  of  silence  and 
darkness  and  emptiness  and  death.  And  I  have 
tried  throughout  this  volume  to  show  that  Winter  is 
only  a  symbol,  that  death  is  only  an  appearance, 
that  life  is  everywhere,  and  that  everywhere  life  domi- 
nates even  while  it  lies  buried  under  the  winding- 
sheet  of  the  snow. 

"  A  simple  child, 
That  lightly  draws  its  breath, 
What  should  it  know  of  death  ?  " 

Why,  this  at  least,  that  the  winter  world  is  not 
dead;  that  the  cold  is  powerless  to  destroy;  that 


x  INTRODUCTION 

life  flees  and  hides  and  sleeps,  only  to  waken  again, 
forever  stronger  than  death — fresher,  fairer,  sweeter 
for  its  long  winter  rest. 

But  first  of  all,  and  always,  I  have  tried  here. to 
be  a  naturalist  and  nature-lover,  pointing  out  the 
sounds  and  sights,  the  things  to  do,  the  places  to 
visit,  the  how  and  why,  that  the  children  may  know 
the  wild  life  of  winter,  and  through  that  knowledge 
come  to  love  winter  for  its  own  sake. 

And  they  will  love  it.  Winter  seems  to  have  been 
made  especially  for  children.  They  do  not  have 
rheumatism.  Let  the  old  people  hurry  off  down 
South,  but  turn  the  children  loose  in  the  snow.  The 
sight  of  a  snowstorm  affects  a  child  as  the  smell  of 
catnip  affects  a  cat.  He  wants  to  roll  over  and  over 
and  over  in  it.  And  he  should  roll  in  it ;  the  snow 
is  his  element  as  it  is  a  polar  bear  cub's. 

I  love  the  winter,  and  so  do  all  children  —  its 
bare  fields,  empty  woods,  flattened  meadows,  its 
ranging  landscapes,  its  stirless  silences,  its  tumult 
of  storms,  its  crystal  nights  with  stars  new  cut  in 
the  glittering  sky,  its  challenge,  defiance,  and 
mighty  wrath.  I  love  its  wild  life  —  its  birds  and 
animals;  the  shifts  they  make  to  conquer  death. 
And  then,  out  of  this  winter  watching,  I  love  the 
gentleness  that  comes,  the  sympathy,  the  understand- 
ing! One  gets  very  close  to  the  heart  of  Nature 
through  such  understanding. 

DALLAS  LORE  SHARP. 

MULLEIN  HILL,  March,  1912. 


WINTEK 

CHAPTER  I 

HUNTING   THE    SNOW 

YOU  want  no  gun,  no  club,  no  game-bag,  no 
steel  trap,  no  snare  when  you  go  hunting  the 
snow.  Rubber  boots  or  overshoes,  a  good, 
stout  stick  to  help  you  up  the  ridges,  a  pair  of  field- 
glasses  and  a  keen  eye,  are  all  you  need  for  this 
hunt,  —  besides,  of  course,  the  snow  and  the  open 
country. 

You  have  shoveled  the  first  snow  of  the  winter ; 
you  have  been  snowballing  in  it ;  you  have  coasted 
on  it;  and  gone  sleigh-riding  over  it;  but  unless  you 
have  gone  hunting  over  it  you  have  missed  the 
rarest,  best  sport  that  the  first  snowfall  can  bring 
you. 

Of  all  the  days  to  be  out  in  the  woods,  the  day 
that  follows  the  first  snowfall  is  —  the  best  ?  No, 
not  the  best.  For  there  is  the  day  in  April  when  you 
go  after  arbutus;  and  there  is  the  day  in  June 
when  the  turtles  come  out  to  lay  in  the  sand ;  the 
muggy,  cloudy  day  in  August  when  the  perch  are 
hungry  for  you  in  the  creek ;  the  hazy  Indian  Sum- 


2  ;  WINTER 

mer  day  when  the  chestnuts  are  dropping  for  you 
in  the  pastures ;  the  keen,  crisp  February  day  when 
the  ice  spreads  glassy-clear  and  smooth  for  you  over 
the  mill-pond ;  the  muddy,  raw,  half-thawed,  half- 
lighted,  half-drowned  March  day  when  the  pussy- 
willows are  breaking,  and  the  first  spring  frogs  are 
piping  to  you  from  the  meadow.  Then  there  is  — 
every  day,  every  one  of  the  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  days,  each  of  them  best  days  to  be  out  in  the 
live  world  of  the  fields  and  woods. 

But  one  of  the  very  best  days  to  be  out  in  the 
woods  is  the  day  that  follows  the  first  winter  snow- 
fall, for  that  is  the  day  when  you  must  shoulder  a 
good  stout  stick  and  go  gunning.  Gunning  with  a 
stick?  Yes,  with  a  stick,  and  rubber  boots,  and  bird- 
glasses.  Along  with  this  outfit  you  might  take  a 
small  jointed  foot-rule  with  which  to  measure  your 
quarry,  and  a  notebook  to  carry  the  game  home  in. 

It  ought  to  be  the  day  after  the  first  real  snow, 
but  not  if  that  snow  happens  to  be  a  blizzard  and  lies 
deep  in  dry  powdery  drifts,  for  then  you  could 
hardly  follow  a  trail  if  you  should  find  one.  Do  not 
try  the  hunt,  either,  if  the  snow  comes  heavy  and 
wet;  for  then  the  animals  will  stay  in  their  dens  until 
the  snow  melts,  knowing,  as  they  do,  that  the  soft 
slushy  stuff  will  soon  disappear.  The  snow  you  need 
will  lie  even  and  smooth,  an  inch  or  two  deep,  and 
will  be  just  damp  enough  to  pack  into  tight  snow- 
balls. 


HUNTING   THE   SNOW 


3 


If,  however,  the  early  snows  are  not  ideal,  then 
wait  until  over  an  old  crusted  snow  there  falls  a  fresh 
layer  about  an  inch  deep.  This  may  prove  even  bet- 
ter hunting,  for  by  this  time  in  the  winter  the  ani- 
mals and  birds  are  quite  used  to  snow-walking,  and 
besides,  their  stores  of  food  are  now  running  short, 
compelling  them  to  venture  forth  whether  or  not 
they  wish  to  go. 

It  was  early  in  December  that  our  first  hunting- 
snow  came  last  year.  We  were  ready  for  it,  waiting 
for  it,  and  when  the  winter  sun  broke  over  the  ridge, 
we  started  the  hunt  at  the  hen-yard  gate,  where  we 


saw  tracks  in  the  thin,  new  snow 

that  led  us  up  the  ridge,  and  along 

its  narrow  back,  to  a  hollow  stump. 

Here  the  hunt  began  in  earnest ; 

for  not  until  that  trail  of  close, 

double,  nail-pointed  prints  went 

under  the  stump  were  the  four  small  boys  convinced 

that  we  were  tracking  a  skunk  and  not  a  cat. 

The  creature  had  moved  leisurely — that  you  could 
tell  by  the  closeness  of  the  prints.  Wide-apart  tracks 


We  were  elated  with 
stump  was  not  .five  minutes 
path  from  the  hen-yard.   And 


WINTER 

in  the  snow  mean  hurry.  Now  a  cat, 
going  as  slowly  as  this  creature  went, 
would  have  put  down  her  dainty  feet 
almost  in  a  single  line,  and  would 
have  left  round,  cushion-marked 
holes  in  the  snow,  not  triangular, 
nail-pointed  prints  like  these.  Cats 
do  not  venture  into  holes  under 
stumps,  either. 

We  had  bagged  our  first  quarry  ! 
No,  no  !    We  had  not  pulled  that 
wood  pussy  out  of  his  hole  and  put 
him  into  our  game-bag.   We  did  not 
want  to  do  that.  We  really  carried 
no  bag ;  and  if  we  had,  we  should 
not  have  put  the  wood  pussy  into 
it,  for  we  were  hunting  tracks, 
not  animals,  and  "  bagging  our 
quarry  "  meant  trailing  a  creature 
to  its  den,  or  following  its  track 
till  we  had  discovered  some- 
thing it  had  done,  or  what 
its  business  was,  and  why  it 
was  out.  We  were  on 
the  snow  for  animal 
facts,  not  pelts, 
our  luck,  for  this 

<^      by  the  ridge 
here,    stand- 


HUNTING  THE   SNOW  5 

ing  on  the  stump,  we  were  only  sixty  minutes  away 
from  Boston  Common  by  the  automobile,  driving 
no  faster  than  the  law  allows.  So  we  were  hunting, 
not  in  a  wilderness,  but  just  outside  our  dooryard 
and  almost  within  the  borders  of  a  great  city. 

And  that  is  the  first  interesting  fact  of  our  morning 
hunt.  No  one  but  a  lover  of  the  woods  and  a  careful 
walker  on  the  snow  would  believe  that  here  in  the 
midst  of  hayfields,  in  sight  of  the  smoke  of  city  fac- 
tories, so  many  of  the  original  wild  wood-folk  still 
live  and  travel  their  night  paths  undisturbed. 

Still,  this  is  a  rather  rough  bit  of  country,  broken, 
ledgy,  boulder-strewn,  with  swamps  and  woody  hills 
that  alternate  with  small  towns  and  cultivated  fields 
for  many  miles  around. 

Here  the  animals  are  still  at  home,  as  this  hole  of 
the  skunk's  under  the  stump  proved.  But  there  was 
more  proof.  As  we  topped  the  ridge  on  the  trail  of 
the  skunk,  we  crossed  another  trail,  made  up  of 
bunches  of  four  prints,  —  two  long  and  broad,  two 
small  and  roundish,  —  spaced  about  a  yard  apart. 

A  hundred  times,  the  winter  before,  we  had  tried 
that  trail  in  the  hope  of  finding  the  form  or  the  bur- 
row of  its  maker;  but  it  crossed  and  turned  and 
doubled,  and  always  led  us  into  a  tangle,  out  of  which 
we  never  got  a  clue.  It  was  the  track  of  the  great 
northern  hare,  as  we  knew,  and  we  were  relieved  to 
see  the  strong  prints  of  our  cunning  neighbor  again  ; 
for,  what  with  the  foxes  and  the  hunters,  we  were 


6  WINTER 

afraid  it  might  have  fared  ill  with  him.  But  here  he 
was,  with  four  good  legs  under  him ; 
and,  after  bagging  our  skunk,  we 
returned  to  pick  up  the  hare's  trail, 
to  try  our  luck  once  more. 
We  followed  his  long,  leisurely  leaps 
down  the  ridge,  out  into  our  mowing-field, 
U  jf  and  over  to  the  birches  below  the  house. 
Here  he  had  capered  about  in  the  snow,  had 


stood  up  on  his  haunches  and  gnawed  the 
bark  from  off  a  green  oak  sucker  two  and 
a  half  feet  from  the  ground.  This,  doubt- 
less, was  pretty  near  his  length,  stretched 
out  — an  interesting  item  ;  not  exact  to  the 
inch,  perhaps,  but  close  enough  for  us ;  for 

who  would  care  to  kill  him  in  order  to  measure  him 

with  scientific  accuracy? 

Nor  was  this  all ;  for  up  the  footpath  through  the 

birches  came  the  marks  of  two  dogs.  They  joined 

the  marks  of  the  hare.  And  then,  back  along  the 

edge  of  the  woods  to  the  bushy  ridge,  we  saw  a 

pretty  race. 

It  was  all  in  our  imaginations,  all  done  for  us  by 

those  long-flinging  footprints  in  the  snow.  But  we 


"  7, 


HUNTING  THE   SNOW 


saw  it  all  —  the  white  hare,  the  yelling  hounds,  nip 
and  tuck,  in  a  burst  of  speed  across  the  open  field 
which  must  have  left  a  . 
gap  in  the  wind  behind.  -  ^-^^^^ 


It  had  all  come  as  a  surprise.  The 
hounds  had  climbed  the  hill  on  the 
scent  of  a  fox,  and  had  started  the  hare  unexpectedly. 
Off  he  had  gone  with  a  jump.  But  just  such  a  jump 
of  fear  is  what  a  hare's  magnificent  legs  were  in- 
tended for. 

Those  legs  carried  him  a  clear  twelve  feet  in  some 
of  the  longest  leaps  for  the  ridge ;  and  they  carried 
him  to  safety,  so  far  as  we  could  read  the  snow.  In 
the  medley  of  hare-and-hound  tracks  on       <£ 
the  ridge  there  was  no  sign  of  a  tragedy. 
He    had   escaped   again  —  but    how   and 
where  we  have  still  to  learn. 

We  had  bagged  our  hare,  —  yet  we  have 
him  still  to  bag,  —  and  taking  up  the  trail 
of  one  of  the  dogs,  we  continued  our  hunt. 
One  of  the  joys  of  this  snow-hunting  is 
having  a  definite  road  or  trail  blazed  for 
you  by  knowing,  purposeful  wild-animal 
feet. 

You   do  not   have   to  blunder   ahead, 
breaking   your  way  into   this  wilderness 
world,  trusting  luck  to  bring  you  somewhere.  The 
wild  animal  or  the  dog  goes  this  way,  and  not  that, 


8  WINTER 

for  a  reason.  You  are  watching  that  reason  all  along ; 
you  are  pack-fellow  to  the  hound ;  you  hunt  with  him. 

Here  the  hound  had  thrust  his  muzzle  into  a  snow- 
capped pile  of  slashings,  had  gone  clear  round  the 
pile,  then  continued  on  his  way.  But  we  stopped ;  for 
out  of  the  pile,  in  a  single,  direct  line,  ran  a  number 
of  mouse  prints,  going  and  coming.  A  dozen  white- 
footed  mice  might  have  traveled  that  road  since  the 
day  before,  when  the  snow  had  ceased  falling. 

We  entered  the  tiny  road,  for  in  this  kind  of  hunt- 
ing a  mouse  is  as  good  as  a  mink,  and  found  ourselves 
descending  the  woods  toward  the  garden  patch  below. 
Halfway  down  we  came  to  a  great  red  oak,  into  a  hole 
at  the  base  of  which,  as  into  the  portal  of  some 
mighty  castle,  ran  the  road  of  the  mice.  That  was  the 
end  of  it.  There  was  not  a  single  straying  footprint 
beyond  the  tree. 

I  reached  in  as  far  as  my  arm  would  go,  and  drew 
out  a  fistful  of  pop-corn  cobs.  So  here  was  part  of  my 
scanty  crop  !  I  pushed  in  again,  and  gathered  up  a 
bunch  of  chestnut  shells,  hickory-nuts  and  several 
neatly  rifled  hazelnuts.  This  was  story  enough. 
There  must  be  a  family  of  mice  living  under  the 
slashing-pile,  who  for  some  good  reason  kept  their 
stores  here  in  the  recesses  of  this  ancient  red  oak. 
Or  was  this  some  squirrel's  barn  being  pilfered  by 
the  mice,  as  my  barn  is  the  year  round  ?  It  was  not 
all  plain.  But  this  question,  this  constant  riddle 
of  the  woods,  is  part  of  our  constant  joy  in  the 


HUNTING  THE   SNOW 


woods.  Life  is 
always  new,  and 
always  strange, 
and  always  fas- 
cinating. 

It  has  all  been 

studied  and  classified  according  • 
to  species.  Any  one  knowing  the 
woods  at  all,  would  know  that 
these  wrere  mouse  tracks,  would  even 
know  that  they  were  the  tracks  of  the 
white-footed  mouse,  and  not  the  tracks 
of  the  jumping  mouse,  the  house  mouse, 
or  the  meadow  mouse.  But  what  is  the 
whole  small  story  of  these  prints?  What 
purpose,  what  intention,  what  feeling,  do 
they  spell  ?  What  and  why  ? — a  hundred 
times ! 

So  it  is  not  the  bare  tracks  that  we  are 
hunting;  it  is  the  meaning  of  the  tracks  — 
where  they  are  going,  and  what  they  are 
going  for.  Burns  saw  a  little  mouse  run 
across  the  furrows  as  he  was  plowing  and 
wrote  a  poem  about  it.  So  could  we  write 
a  poem  if  we  like  Burns  would  stop  to 
think  what  the  running  of  these  little  mice 
across  the  snow  might  mean.  The  woods 
and  fields,  summer  and  winter,  are  full  of 
poems  that  might  be  written  if  we  only 


ft 


10  WINTER 

knew  just  all  that  the  tiny  snow-prints  of  a  wood 
mouse  mean,  or  understood  just  what,  "  root  and  all, 
and  all  in  all,"  the  humblest  flower  is. 

The  pop-corn  cobs,  however,  we  did  understand; 
they  told  a  plain  story ;  and,  falling  in  with  a  gray 
squirrel's  track  not  far  from  the  red  oak,  we  went  on, 
our  burdenless  game-bag  heavier,  our  hearts  lighter 
that  we,  by  the  sweat  of  our  brows,  had  contributed 
a  few  ears  of  corn  to  the  comfort  of  this  snowy 
winter  world. 

The  squirrel's  track  wound  up  and  down  the  hill- 
side, wove  in  and  out  and  round  and  round,  hitting 
every  possible  tree,  as  if  the  only  road  for  a  squirrel 
was  one  that  looped  and  doubled,  and  tied  up  every 
stump,  and  zigzagged  into  every  tree  trunk  in  the 
woods. 

But  all  this  maze  was  no  ordinary  journey.  He  had 
not  run  this  coil  of  a  road  for  breakfast,  because  a 
squirrel,  when  he  travels,  say  for  distant  nuts,  goes 
as  directly  as  you  go  to  your  school  or  office ;  only 
he  goes  not  by  streets,  but  by  trees,  never  crossing 
more  of  the  open  in  a  single  rush  than  the  space  be- 
tween him  and  the  nearest  tree  that  will  take  him 
on  his  way. 

What  interested  us  here  in  the  woods  was  the  fact 
that  a  second  series  of  tracks,  just  like  the  first,  ex- 
cept that  they  were  only  about  half  as  large,  dogged 
the  larger  tracks  persistently,  leaping  tree  for  tree, 
and  landing  track  for  track  with  astonishing  accu- 


HUNTING   THE   SNOW  11 

racy  —  tracks  which,  had  they  not  been  evidently 
those  of  a  smaller  squirrel,  would  have  read  to  us 
most  menacingly. 

As  this  was  the  mating  season  for  squirrels,  I  sug- 
gested that  it  might  have  been  a  kind  of  Atalanta's 
race  here  in  the  woods.  But  why  did  so  little  a  squir- 
rel want  to  mate  with  one  so  large  ?  They  would  not 
look  well  together,  was  the  answer  of  the  small 
boys.  They  thought  it  much  more  likely  that  Father 
Squirrel  had  been  playing  wood-tag  with  one  of  his 
children. 

Then,  suddenly,  as  sometimes  happens  in  the  woods, 


** 

** 


the  true  meaning  of  the  signs 

was    fairly    hurled    at    us,    for 

down  the  hill,    squealing    and 

panting,  rushed  a  full-sized  gray  squirrel,  with  a  red 

squirrel  like  a  shadow,  like  a  weasel,  at  his  heels. 

For  just  an  instant  I  thought  it  was  a  weasel,*so 
swift  and  silent  and  gliding  were  its  movements,  so 
set  and  cruel  seemed  its  expression,  so  sure,  so  inev- 
itable, its  victory. 

Whether  it  ever  caught  the  gray  squirrel  or  not, 


12  WINTER 

and  what  it  would  have  done  had  it  caught  the  big 
fellow,  I  do  not  know.  But  I  have  seen  the  chase 
often  —  the  gray  squirrel  nearly  exhausted  with 
fright  and  fatigue,  the  red  squirrel  hard  after  him. 
They  tore  round  and  round  us,  then  up  over  the  hill, 
and  disappeared. 

One  of  the  rarest  prints  for  most  snow-hunters 
nowadays,  but  one  of  the  commonest   hereabouts, 


is  the  quick,  sharp  track  of  the  fox.  In  the  spring 
particularly,  when  my  fancy  young  chickens  are 
turned  out  to  pasture,  I  have  spells  of  fearing  that 
the  fox  will  never  be  exterminated  here  in  this  un- 
tillable  but  beautiful  chicken  country.  In  the  winter, 
however,  when  I  see  Reynard's  trail  across  my 
lawn,  when  I  hear  the  music  of  the  baying  hounds 
and  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  white-tipped  brush  swing- 
ing serenely  in  advance  of  the  coming  pack,  I  can- 
not but  admire  the  capable,  cunning  rascal,  cannot 
but  be  glad  for  him,  and  marvel  at  him,  so  resource- 
ful, so  superior  to  his  almost  impossible  conditions, 
his  almost  numberless  foes. 

We  started  across  the  meadow  on  his  trail,  but 
found  it  leading  so  straightaway  for  the  ledges,  and 
so  continuously  blotted  out  by  the  passing  of  the 


HUNTING  THE   SNOW  13 

pack,  that,  striking  the  wallowy  path  of  a  muskrat 
in  the  middle  of  the  meadow,  we  took  up  the  new 
scent  to  see  what  the  shuffling,  cowering  water-rat 
wanted  from  across  the  snow. 

A  man  is  known  by  the  company  he  keeps,  by  the 
way  he  wears  his  hat,  by  the  manner  of  his  laugh  ; 
and  among  the  wild  animals  nothing  tells  more  of 
character  than  their  manner  of  moving.  You  can 
read  animal  character  as  easily  in  the  snow  as  you 
can  read  act  and  direction. 

The  timidity,  the  indecision,  the  lack  of  purpose, 
the  restless,  meaningless  curiosity  of  this  muskrat 
were  evident  from  the  first  in  the  starting,  stopping, 
returning,  going-on  track  he  had  plowed  out  in  the 
thin  snow. 

He  did  not  know  where  he  was  going  or  what  he 
was  going  for ;  he  knew  only  that  he  insisted  upon 
going  back,  but  all  the  while  kept  going  on  ;  that 
he  wanted  to  go  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  yet  kept 
moving  straight  ahead. 

We  came  to  a  big  wallow  in  the  snow,  where,  in 
sudden  fear,  he  had  had  a  fit  at  the  thought  of 
something  that  might  not  have  happened  to  him 
had  he  stayed  at  home.  Every  foot  of  the  trail 
read,  "  He  would  if  he  could ;  if  he  could  n't,  how 
could  he  ?  " 

We  followed  him  on,  across  a  dozen  other  trails, 
for  it  is  not  every  winter  night  that  the  muskrat's 
feet  get  the  better  of  his  head,  and,  willy-nilly,  take 


14 


WINTER 


him  abroad.    Strange  and  fatal  weakness  !  He  goes 
and  cannot  stop. 

Along  the  stone 
wall  of  the  meadow 
we  tracked  him,  across 
the  highroad,  over  our 
garden,  into  the  or- 
chard, up  the  woody 
hill  to  the  yard,  back 
down  the  hill  to  the 


orchard,  out  into  the  garden, 
and  back  toward  the  orchard 
again  ;  and  here,  on  a  knoll  just 
at  the  edge  of  the  scanty,  skele- 
ton shadow  where  the  sunlight 
fell  through  the  trees,  we  lost 
him. 

Two  mighty  wings,  we  saw, 
had  touched  the  snow  lightly 
here,  and  the  lumbering  trail 
had  vanished  as  into  the  air. 

Close  and  mysterious  the 
shadowy  silent  wings  hang  poised  indoors  and  out. 
Laughter  and  tears  are  companions.  Life  begins,  but 
death  sometimes  ends  the  trail.  Yet  the  sum  of  life, 
outdoors  and  in,  is  peace,  gladness,  and  fulfillment. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE     TURKEY     DRIVE 

THE  situation  was  serious  enough  for  the  two 
boys.  It  was  not  a  large  fortune,  but  it  was 
their  whole  fortune,  that  straggled  along  the 
slushy  road  in  the  shape  of  five  hundred  weary, 
hungry  turkeys,  which  were  looking  for  a  roosting- 
place. 

But  there  was  no  place  where  they  could  roost,  no 
safe  place,  as  the  boys  well  knew,  for  on  each  side  of 
the  old  road  stretched  the  forest  trees,  a  dangerous, 
and  in  the  weakened  condition  of  the  turkeys,  an 
impossible  roost  on  such  a  night  as  was  coming. 

For  the  warm  south  wind  had  again  veered  to  the 
north ;  the  slush  was  beginning  to  grow  crusty,  and 
a  fine  sifting  of  snow  was  slanting  through  the  open 
trees.  Although  it  was  still  early  afternoon,  the 
gloom  of  the  night  had  already  settled  over  the  for- 
est, and  the  turkeys,  with  empty  crops,  were  peevishly 
searching  the  bare  trees  for  a  roost. 

It  was  a  strange,  slow  procession  that  they  made, 
here  in  the  New  Brunswick  forest — the  flock  of 
five  hundred  turkeys,  toled  forward  by  a  boy  of 
eighteen,  kept  in  line  by  a  well-trained  shepherd-dog 
that  raced  up  and  down  the  straggling  column,  and 


16  WINTER 

urged  on  in  the  rear  by  a  boy  of  nineteen,  who  was 
followed,  in  his  turn,  by  an  old  horse  and  farm  wagon, 
creeping  along  behind. 

It  was  growing  more  difficult  all  the  time  to  keep 
the  turkeys  moving.  But  they  must  not  be  allowed 
to  stop  until  darkness  should  put  an  end  to  the 
march.  And  they  must  not  be  allowed  to  take  to 
the  trees  at  all.  Some  of  them,  indeed,  were  too 
weak  to  roost  high;  but  the  flock  would  never  move 
forward  again  if  exposed  in  the  tall  trees  on  such  a 
night  as  this  promised  to  be. 

The  thing  to  do  was  to  keep  them  stirring.  Once 
allow  them  to  halt,  give  one  of  them  time  to  pick 
out  a  roosting-limb  for  himself,  and  the  march  would 
be  over  for  that  afternoon.  The  boys  knew  their 
flock.  This  was  not  their  first  drive.  They  knew 
from  experience  that  once  a  turkey  gets  it  into  his 
small  head  to  roost,  he  is  bound  to  roost.  Nothing 
will  stop  him.  And  in  this  matter  the  flock  acts  as 
a  single  bird. 

In  the  last  village,  back  along  the  road,  through 
which  they  had  passed,  this  very  flock  took  a  notion 
suddenly  to  go  to  roost,  and  to  go  to  roost  on  a 
little  chapel  as  the  vesper  bells  were  tolling.  The 
bells  were  tolling,  the  worshipers  were  gathering, 
when,  with  a  loud  gobble,  one  of  the  turkeys  in  the 
flock  sailed  into  the  air  and  alighted  upon  the  ridge- 
pole beside  the  belfry!  Instantly  the  flock  broke 
ranks,  ran  wildly  round  the  little  building,  and  with 


THE   TURKEY   DRIVE  17 

a  clamor  that  drowned  the  vesper  bell,  came  down  on 
the  chapel  in  a  feathered  congregation  that  covered 
every  shingle  of  the  roof.  Only  the  humor  and  quick 
wit  of  the  kindly  old  priest  prevented  the  superstitious 
of  his  people  from  going  into  a  panic.  The  service 
had  to  wait  until  the  birds  made  themselves  com- 
fortable for  the  night  —  belfry,  roof,  window-sills, 
and  porch  steps  thick  with  roosting  turkeys ! 

The  boys  had  come  to  have  almost  a  fear  of  this 
mania  for  roosting,  for  they  never  knew  when  it 
might  break  out  or  what  strange  turn  it  might 
take.  They  knew  now,  as  the  snow  and  the  gray 
dusk  began  to  thicken  in  the  woods,  that  the  flock 
must  not  go  to  roost.  Even  the  dog  understood  the 
signs,  —  the  peevish  quint,  quint,  quint,  the  sudden 
bolting  of  some  gobbler  into  the  brush,  the  stretch- 
ing necks,  the  lagging  steps,  —  and  redoubled  his 
efforts  to  keep  the  line  from  halting. 

For  two  days  the  flock  had  been  without  food. 
Almost  a  week's  supply  of  grain,  enough  to  carry 
them  through  to  the  border,  had  been  loaded  into 
the  wagon  before  starting  in  upon  this  wild,  de- 
serted road  through  the  Black  Creek  region  ;  but 
the  heavy,  day-long  snowstorm  had  prevented  their 
moving  at  all  for  one  day,  and  had  made  travel  so 
nearly  impossible  since  then  that  here  they  were, 
facing  a  blizzard,  with  night  upon  them,  five  hun- 
dred starving  turkeys  straggling  wearily  before 
them,  and  a  two  days'  drive  yet  to  go ! 


18  WINTER 

The  two  brothers  had  got  a  short  leave  from 
college,  and  had  started  their  turkey  drive  in  the 
more  settled  regions  back  from  the  New  Brunswick 
border.  They  had  bought  up  the  turkeys  from  farm 
to  farm,  had  herded  them  in  one  great  flock  as  they 
drove  them  leisurely  along,  and  had  moved  all  the 
while  toward  the  state  line,  whence  they  planned  to 
send  them  through  Maine  for  the  New  England 
market.  Upon  reaching  the  railroad,  they  would 
rest  and  feed  the  birds,  and  ship  them,  in  a  special 
freight-car  ordered  in  advance,  to  a  Boston  commis- 
sion house,  sell  the  horse  and  rig  for  what  they  could 
get,  and,  with  their  dog,  go  directly  back  to  college. 

More  money  than  they  actually  possessed  had 
gone  into  the  daring  venture.  But  the  drive  had 
been  more  than  successful  until  the  beginning  of  the 
Black  Creek  road.  The  year  before  they  had  gone 
over  the  same  route,  which  they  had  chosen  because 
it  was  sparsely  settled  and  because  the  prices  were 
low.  This  year  the  farmers  were  expecting  them ; 
the  turkeys  were  plentiful;  and  the  traveling  had 
been  good  until  this  early  snow  had  caught  them 
here  in  the  backwoods  and  held  them;  and  now, 
with  the  sudden  shift  of  the  wind  again  to  the 
north,  it  threatened  to  delay  them  farther,  past  all 
chance  of  bringing  a  single  turkey  through  alive. 

But  George  and  Herbert  Totman  had  not  worked 
their  way  into  their  junior  year  at  college  to  sit 
down  by  the  roadside  while  there  was  light  to  travel 


THE   TURKEY   DRIVE  19 

by.  They  were  not  the  kind  to  let  their  turkeys  go 
to  roost  before  sundown.  It  was  a  slow  and  solemn 
procession  that  moved  through  the  woods,  but  it 
moved  —  toward  a  goal  that  they  had  set  for  that 
day's  travel. 

All  day,  at  long  intervals,  as  they  had  pushed 
along  the  deep  forest  road,  the  muffled  rumble  of 
distant  trains  had  come  to  them  through  the  silence ; 
and  now,  although  neither  of  them  had  mentioned  it, 
they  were  determined  to  get  out  somewhere  near  the 
tracks  before  the  night  and  the  storm  should  settle 
down  upon  them.  Their  road,  hardly  more  here  than 
a  wide  trail,  must  cross  the  railroad  tracks,  as  they 
remembered  it,  not  more  than  two  or  three  miles 
ahead. 

Leaving  more  and  more  of  the  desolate  forest  be- 
hind them  with  every  step,  they  plodded  doggedly 
on.  But  there  was  so  much  of  the  same  desolate 
forest  still  before  them!  Yet  yonder,  and  not  far 
away,  was  the  narrow  path  of  the  iron  track  through 
the  interminable  waste  ;  something  human  —  the 
very  sight  of  it  enough  to  warm  and  cheer  them. 
They  would  camp  to-night  where  they  could  see  a 
train  go  by. 

The  leaden  sky  lowered  closer  upon  them.  The 
storm  had  not  yet  got  under  full  headway,  but  the 
fine  icy  flakes  were  flying  faster,  slanting  farther,  and 
the  wind  was  beginning  to  drone  through  the  trees. 

Without  a  halt,  the  flock  moved  on  through  the 


20  WINTER 

thickening  storm.  But  the  dog  was  having  all  that 
he  could  do  to  keep  the  stragglers  in  order ;  and 
George,  in  the  rear,  saw  that  they  must  stir  the 
flock,  for  the  birds  were  gradually  falling  back  into 
a  thick  bunch  before  him. 

Hurrying  back  to  the  wagon,  he  got  two  loaves  of 
bread,  and  ran  ahead  with  them  to  Herbert.  The 
famished  turkeys  seemed  to  know  what  he  carried, 
and  broke  into  a  run  after  him.  For  half  a  mile  they 
kept  up  the  gait,  as  both  boys,  trotting  along  the 
road,  dropped  pieces  of  bread  on  the  snow. 

Then  the  whole  game  had  to  be  repeated  ;  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  flock,  falling  hopelessly  behind, 
soon  forgot  what  they  were  running  after,  and  be- 
gan to  cry,  "  Quint !  quint  !  quint  !  "  —  the  roost- 
ing-cry  !  So,  starting  again  in  the  rear  with  the  bread, 
George  carried  the  last  of  the  flock  forward  for  an- 
other good  run. 

"  We  should  win  this  game,"  Herbert  panted,  "  if 
we  only  had  loaves  enough  to  make  a  few  more 
touch-downs." 

"There 's  half  an  hour  yet  to  play,"  was  George's 
answer. 

"But  what  on?" 

"  Oh,  on  our  nerve  now,"  the  older  boy  replied 
grimly. 

"  That  railroad  is  not  far  ahead,"  said  Herbert. 

"Half  an  hour  ahead.  We've  got  to  camp  by 
that  track  to-night  or  — " 


THE   TURKEY   DRIVE  21 

"Or  what?" 

But  George  had  turned  to  help  the  dog  head  off 
some  runaways. 

Herbert,  picking  up  a  lump  of  frozen  leaves  and 
snow,  began  to  break  this  in  front  of  the  flock  to 
tole  them  on. 

He  had  hardly  started  the  birds  again,  when  a 
long-legged  gobbler  brushed  past  him  and  went 
swinging  down  the  road,  calling,  "  Quint !  quint ! 
quint !  "  to  the  flock  behind.  The  call  was  taken  up 
and  passed  along  the  now  extended  line,  which,  break- 
ing immediately  into  double-quick,  went  streaming 
after  him. 

Herbert  got  out  of  the  way  to  let  them  pass,  too 
astonished  for  a  moment  to  do  more  than  watch  them 
go.  It  was  the  roosting-cry !  An  old  gobbler  had 
given  it ;  but  as  it  was  taking  him,  for  once,  in  the 
right  direction,  Herbert  ordered  back  the  dog  that 
had  dashed  forward  to  head  him  off,  and  fell  in  with 
George  to  help  on  the  stragglers  in  the  rear. 

As  the  laggards  were  brought  up  to  a  slight  rise 
in  the  road,  the  flock  was  seen  a  hundred  yards 
ahead,  gathered  in  a  dark  mass  about  a  telegraph- 
pole  !  It  could  be  nothing  else,  for  through  the  whirl- 
ing snow  the  big  cross-arms  stood  out,  dim  but  un- 
mistakable. 

It  was  this  that  the  gobbler  had  spied  and  started 
for,  this  sawed  and  squared  piece  of  timber,  that  had 
suggested  a  barnyard  to  him,  —  corn  and  roost,  — 


22  WINTER 

as  to  the  boys  it  meant  a  human  presence  in  the  for- 
est and  something  like  human  companionship. 

It  was  after  four  o'clock  now,  and  the  night  was 
hard  upon  them.  The  wind  was  strengthening  every 
minute  ;  the  snow  was  coming  finer  and  swifter.  The 
boys'  worst  fears  about  the  storm  were  beginning  to 
be  realized. 

But  the  sight  of  the  railroad  track  heartened  them. 
The  strong-armed  poles,  with  their  humming  wires, 
reached  out  hands  of  hope  to  them ;  and  getting 
among  the  turkeys,  they  began  to  hurry  them  off 
the  track  and  down  the  steep  embankment,  which 
fortunately  offered  them  here  some  slight  protection 
from  the  wind.  But  as  fast  as  they  pushed  the  birds 
off,  the  one-minded  things  came  back  on  the  track. 
The  whole  flock,  meanwhile,  was  scattering  up  and 
down  the  iron  rails  and  settling  calmly  down  upon 
them  for  the  night. 

They  were  going  to  roost  upon  the  track !  The 
railroad  bank  shelved  down  to  the  woods  on  each 
side,  and  along  its  whitened  peak  lay  the  two  black 
rails  like  ridge-poles  along  the  length  of  a  long  roof. 
In  the  thick  half-light  of  the  whirling  snow,  the 
turkeys  seemed  suddenly  to  find  themselves  at  home : 
and  as  close  together  as  they  could  crowd,  with  their 
breasts  all  to  the  storm,  they  arranged  themselves 
in  two  long  lines  upon  the  steel  rails. 

And  nothing  could  move  them !  As  fast  as  one 
was  tossed  down  the  bank,  up  he  came.  Starting 


THE   TURKEY   DRIVE  23 

down  the  lines,  the  boys  pushed  and  shoved  to  clear 
the  track;  but  the  lines  re-formed  behind  them 
quickly,  evenly,  and  almost  without  a  sound.  As  well 
try  to  sweep  back  the  waves  of  the  sea !  They  worked 
together  to  collect  a  small  band  of  the  birds  and 
drive  them  into  the  edge  of  the  woods;  but  every 
time  the  band  dwindled  to  a  single  turkey  that 
dodged  between  their  legs  toward  its  place  on  the 
roost.  The  two  boys  could  have  kept  two  turkeys 
off  the  rails,  but  not  five  hundred. 

"  The  game  is  up,  George,"  said  Herbert,  as  the 
sickening  thought  of  a  passing  train  swept  over  him. 

The  words  were  hardly  uttered  when  there  came 
the  tankle,  tankle  of  the  big  cow-bell  hanging  from 
the  collar  of  the  horse,  that  was  just  now  coming 
up  to  the  crossing ! 

George  caught  his  breath  and  started  over  to  stop 
the  horse,  when,  above  the  loud  hum  of  the  wires 
and  the  sound  of  the  wind  in  the  forest  trees,  they 
heard  through  the  storm  the  muffled  whistle  of  a 
locomotive. 

"  Quick  !  The  horse,  Herbert !  Hitch  him  to  a  tree 
and  come ! "  called  George,  as  he  dived  in1  to  the 
wagon  and  pulled  out  their  lantern.  "Those  birds 
could  wreck  the  train ! "  he  shouted,  and  hurried  for- 
ward along  the  track  with  his  lighted  lantern  in  his 
hand. 

It  was  not  the  thought  of  the  turkeys,  but  the 
thought  of  the  people  on  the  flying  Montreal  express, 


24  WINTER 

-  if  that  it  was,  —  that  sped  him  up  the  track.  In 
his  imagination  he  saw  the  wreck  of  a  ditched  train 
below  him;  the  moans  of  a  hundred  mangled  beings 
he  heard  sounding  in  his  ears ! 

On  into  the  teeth  of  the  blinding  storm  he  raced, 
while  he  strained  his  eyes  for  a  glimpse  of  the  com- 
ing train. 

The  track  seemed  to  lie  straightaway  in  front  of 
him,  and  he  bent  his  head  for  a  moment  before  the 
wind,  when,  out  of  the  smother  of  the  snow,  the 
flaring  headlight  leaped  almost  upon  him. 

He  sprang  aside,  stumbled,  and  pitched  headlong 
down  the  bank,  as  the  engine  of  a  freight,  with  a 
roar  that  dazed  him,  swept  past. 

But  the  engineer  had  seen  him,  and  there  was  a 
screaming  of  iron  brakes,  a  crashing  of  cars  together, 
and  a  long-drawn  shrieking  of  wheels,  as  the  heavy 
train  slid  along  the  slippery  rails  to  a  stop. 

As  the  engineer  swung  down  from  his  cab,  he  was 
met,  to  his  great  astonishment,  by  a  dozen  turkeys 
clambering  up  the  embankment  toward  him.  He  had 
plowed  his  way  well  among  the  roosting  flock  and 
brushed  them  unhurt  from  the  rails  as  the  engine 
skidded  along  to  its  slow  stop. 

By  this  time  the  conductor  and  the  train-hands 
had  run  forward  to  see  what  it  all  meant,  and  stood 
looking  at  the  strange  obstruction  on  the  track,  when 
Herbert  came  into  the  glare  of  the  headlight  and 
joined  them.  Then  George  came  panting  up,  and 


THE   TURKEY   DRIVE  25 

the  boys  tried  to  explain  the  situation.  But  their 
explanation  only  made  a  case  of  sheer  negligence 
out  of  what  at  first  had  seemed  a  mystery  to  the 
trainmen.  Both  the  engineer  and  the  conductor  were 
anxious  and  surly.  Their  train  was  already  an  hour 
late;  there  was  a  through  express  behind,  and  the 
track  must  be  cleared  at  once. 

And  they  fell  at  once  to  clearing  it  —  conductor, 
fireman,  brakemen,  and  the  two  boys.  Those  railroad 
men  had  never  tried  to  clear  a  track  of  roosting  tur- 
keys before.  They  cleared  it,  — a  little  of  it, — but 
it  would  not  stay  cleared,  for  the  turkeys  slipped 
through  their  hands,  squeezed  between  their  legs, 
ducked  about  their  heels,  and  got  back  into  place. 
Finally  the  conductor,  putting  two  men  in  line  on 
each  rail,  ordered  the  engineer  to  follow  slowly, 
close  upon  their  heels,  with  the  train,  as  they  scat- 
tered the  birds  before  them. 

The  boys  had  not  once  thought  of  themselves. 
They  had  had  no  time  to  think  of  anything  but  the 
danger  and  the  delay  that  they  had  caused.  They 
helped  with  all  their  might  to  get  the  train  through, 
and  as  they  worked,  silently  listened  to  the  repeated 
threats  of  the  conductor. 

At  last,  with  a  muttered  something,  the  conductor 
kicked  one  of  the  turkeys  into  a  fluttering  heap  be- 
neath the  engine,  and,  turning,  commanded  his  crew 
to  stand  aside  and  let  the  engineer  finish  the  rest 
of  the  flock. 


26 


WINTER 


The  men  got  away  from  the  track.  Then,  catch- 
ing Herbert  by  the  arm,  George  pointed  along  the 
train,  and  bending,  made  a  tossing  motion  toward 
the  top  of  the  cars. 

"Quick!"  he  whispered.  "One  on  every  car!" 
and  stepping  calmly  back  in  front  of  the  engine,  he 
went  down  the  opposite  side  of  the  long  train. 

As  he  passed  the  tender,  he  seized  a  big  gobbler, 
and  sent  him  with  a  wild  throw  up  to  the  top  of  a  low 
coal-car,  just  as  Herbert,  on  his  side,  sent  another 
fluttering  up  to  the  same  perch.  Both  birds  landed 
with  a  flap  and  a  gobble  that  were  heard  by  the 
other  turkeys  up  and  down  the  length  of  the  train. 

Instantly  came  a  chorus  of  answering  gobbles  as 
every  turkey  along  the  track  saw,  in  the  failing  light, 
that  real,  buildings  —  farmyard  buildings  —  were 
here  to  roost  on  !  And  into  the  air  they  went,  helped 
all  along  the  train  by  the  two  boys,  who  were  toss- 


THE   TURKEY   DRIVE  27 

ing  them  into  the  cars,  or  upon  the  loads  of  lumber, 
as  fast  as  they  could  pass  from  car  to  car. 

Luckily,  the  rails  were  sleety,  and  the  mighty  driv- 
ing-wheels, spinning  on  the  ice  with  their  long  load, 
which  seemed  to  freeze  continually  to  the  track,  made 
headway  so  slowly  that  the  whole  flock  had  come  to 
roost  upon  the  cars  before  the  train  was  fairly  moving. 

Conductor  and  brakeman,  hurrying  back  to  board 
the  caboose,  were  midway  of  the  train  before  they 
noticed  what  was  happening.  How  it  was  happening 
they  did  not  see  at  all,  so  hidden  were  the  movements 
of  the  two  boys  in  the  swirl  of  the  blinding  snow. 

For  just  an  instant  the  conductor  checked  himself. 
But  it  was  too  late  to  do  anything.  The  train  was 
moving,  and  he  must  keep  it  moving  as  fast  as  he 
could  to  the  freight-yards  ahead  at  the  junction  — 
the  very  yards  where,  even  now,  an  empty  car  was 
waiting  for  the  overdue  turkeys. 

As  he  ran  on  down  the  track  and  swung  aboard 
the  caboose,  two  other  figures  closed  in  behind  the 
train.  One  of  them,  seizing  the  other  by  the  arm, 
landed  him  safe  upon  the  steps,  and  then  shouted  at 
him  through  the  storm  :  - 

"Certainly  you  shall !  I'm  safe  enough!  I'll  drive 
on  to  that  old  sawmill  to-night.  Feed  'em  in  the  morn- 
ing and  wait  for  me!  Good-by,"  and  as  the  wind 
carried  his  voice  away,  George  Totman  found  him- 
self staring  after  a  ghost-white  car  that  had  vanished 
in  the  storm. 


28  WINTER 

He  was  alone ;  but  the  thought  of  the  great  flock 
speeding  on  to  the  town  ahead  was  company  enough. 
Besides,  he  had  too  much  to  do,  and  to  do  quickly, 
to  think  of  himself ;  for  the  snow  was  blocking  his 
road,  and  the  cold  was  getting  at  him.  But  how  the 
wires  overhead  sang  to  him!  How  the  sounding 
forest  sang  to  him  as  he  went  back  to  give  the  horse 
a  snatch  of  supper  ! 

He  was  soon  on  the  road,  where  the  wind  at  his 
back  and  the  tall  trees  gave  him  protection.  The 
four-wheeled  wagon  pulled  hard  through  the  piling 
snow,  but  the  horse  had  had  an  easy  day,  and  George 
kept  him  going  until,  toward  eight  o'clock,  he  drew 
up  behind  a  lofty  pile  of  slabs  and  sawdust  at  the 
old  mill. 

A  wilder  storm  never  filled  the  resounding  forests 
of  the  North.  The  old  mill  was  far  from  being  proof 
against  the  fine,  icy  snow  ;  but  when  George  rolled 
himself  in  his  heavy  blanket  and  lay  down  beside 
his  dog,  it  was  to  go  to  sleep  to  the  comfortable 
munching  of  the  horse,  and  with  the  thought  that 
Herbert  and  the  turkeys  were  safe. 

And  they  were  safe.  It  was  late  in  the  afternoon 
the  next  day  when  George,  having  left  the  wagon  at 
the  mill,  came  floundering  behind  the  horse  through 
the  unbroken  road  into  the  streets  of  the  junction, 
to  find  Herbert  anxiously  waiting  for  him,  and  the 
turkeys,  with  full  crops,  trying  hard  to  go  to  roost 
inside  their  double-decked  car. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHITE-FOOT 

THE  December  rain  was  falling  down,  down, 
down,  as  if  the  drops  were  lead  instead  of 
water.  The  December  sky,  if  you  could  call 
it  sky,  had  settled  down,  down,  down,  as  if  it  too 
were  of  lead,  and  were  being  propped  up  only  by 
the  tops  of  the  stiff  bare  trees. 

A  green  stick  in  the  fireplace  behind  me  sizzled 
and  sputtered  and  blew  its  small  steam  whistles  to 
warn  me  away  from  the  window,  —  from  the  sight 
of  the  naked  trees,  and  the  cold,  thick  fog  upon  the 
meadow,  and  the  blur  of  the  pine  woods  beyond, 
and  the  rain  falling  down,  down,  down. 

A  dreary  world  out  of  doors  surely,  with  not  a 
sign  of  life  !  The  pine  tree,  rising  up  above  the  hill- 
side in  front  of  the  window,  was  green,  but  only  a 
few  lifeless  leaves  rattled  among  the  middle  branches 
of  the  oaks,  while  up  in  the  stark  top  of  a  hickory 
sapling  was  wedged  a  robin's  nest,  deserted  and  wet 
and  going  to  pieces. 

I  shivered,  in  spite  of  the  hearth-fire  behind  me, 
for  the  face  of  the  gray  gloom  pressed  close  up 
against  the  window  outside.  And  the  empty  robin's 


30  WINTER 

nest,  already  a  ruin !  its  mud  walls  broken,  its  tiny 
timbers  hanging  loose  in  the  rain  ! 

But  what  a  large  nest  for  a  robin,  I  thought ;  and 
how  strangely  peaked  and  pointed  it  is,  like  a  little 
haycock !  Then  all  at  once,  inside  of  me,  and  all 
over  me,  I  felt  a  warm,  delightful  feeling. 

"  It  is  n't  possible,"  said  I  aloud,  but  all  to  my- 
self;  "it  isn't  possible  that  little  White-Foot  has 
moved  into  that  old  robin's  nest  and  fitted  it  up  with 
a  peaked  roof  for  the  winter?" 

And  the  thought  of  it  started  the  warm,  delight- 
ful feeling  again  inside  of  me  and  all  over  me ;  and 
snatching  up  the  tongs  by  the  fireplace  I  ran  out 
into  the  December  rain  and  tapped  a  few  times  on 
the  slender  hickory  sapling. 

And  what  do  you  think  happened  ? 

It  stopped  raining  ? 

No. 

You  broke  your  tongs  ? 

No. 

The  nest  fell  out  and  hit  you  on  the  head? 

No. 

You  ran  back  into  the  house  again  out  of  the 
rain? 

Yes,  I  did,  and  I  went  straight  to  the  window  and 
looked  out  again  at  the  robin's  nest, — my  deserted, 
ruined  robin's  nest,  with  its  thick  thatch  of  water- 
proof cedar  bark,  with  its  little  round  door-hole  in 
the  side,  with  its  soft  furry  bed,  all  toasty  warm,  out 


WHITE-FOOT  31 

of  which  with  my  tapping  tongs  I  had  just  roused 
White-Foot  and  brought  him  sleepy-eyed  to  look 
down  at  me  from  his  door. 

The  rain  continued  to  fall  down  ;  but  my  spirits 
went  up,  and  up,  at  the  thought  of  that  little 
mouse  all  safe  and  warm  for  the  winter  in  Robin's 
deserted  nest. 

And  so,  if  "there  are  no  birds  in  last  year's  nest," 
as  mourns  a  doleful  poem,  you  need  not  be  sad  on 
that  account,  for  if  you  look  closely,  you  may  find, 
now  and  then,  a  mouse  in  last  year's  nest  —  and  who 
will  say  that  finding  a  mouse  in  a  bird's  nest  is  not 
almost  as  interesting  as  finding  a  bird  there? 

A  robin's  nest  in  the  winter-time  would  be  the 
wettest,  muddiest,  coldest  place  in  the  world  for  a 
robin  ;  but  a  mouse  can  take  that  old  robin's  nest 
and  turn  it  into  a  snuggery  (if  you  know  what  a 
"  snuggery  "  is)  so  cozy  and  warm  that  neither  the 
tip  of  Mr.  Mouse's  sharp  nose,  nor  the  tip  of  his 
thin  ears,  nor  the  tippy-tip  of  his  long  bare  tail  ever 
feels  one  sharp  nip  of  the  cold  outside. 

So,  if  there  are  no  birds  in  last  year's  nest  (as 
surely  there  ought  not  to  be),  take  your  tongs  and 
tap,  or,  better,  climb  up,  and  reach  gently  into  the 
nest  with  your  finger,  for  a  mouse  may  be  waiting 
inside  to  bite  you,  —  and  that  would  be  interesting. 

For  a  mouse  is  interesting  —  just  as  interesting 
in  his  mousy  ways  as  a  whale  in  his  whalish  ways, 
or  a  robin  in  his  ways.  Can  you  name  anything  that 


32  WINTER 

does  not  grow  interesting  as  soon  as  you  begin  to 
watch  and  study  it  ?  Large  things,  small  things, 
Bengal  tigers  or  earthworms  —  all  things  will  sur- 
prise and  interest  you  if  you  will  study  them  for  a 
season. 

I  have  a  friend,  for  instance,  who  has  shot  more 
tigers,  in  more  lands,  than  any  other  living  man ;  who 
knows  more  about  tiger  habits  and  the  tempers  of 
the  dangerous  beasts  than  any  other  man ;  and  who, 
as  I  am  writing  this,  is  himself  writing  a  book  which 
is  to  be  called  "  Tiger  Lands."  That  will  be  an  ex- 
citing book,  no  doubt,  for  he  has  had  adventures 
that  made  my  hair  stand  up  on  my  head,  just  to 
hear  about.  Yet  I  very  much  doubt  if  that  book, 
with  all  its  man-eaters,  will  be  any  more  interesting 
or  any  more  valuable  to  us  than  Darwin's  book  on 
earthworms. 

So  am  I  going  to  sigh  because  there  are  no  birds 
in  last  year's  nests?  Had  the  poem  said,  "there 
are  no  mice  in  last  year's  nests,"  that  might  have 
made  me  sad,  perhaps ;  though  I  am  sure  that  I 
could  go  into  the  woods  almost  any  winter  day  and 
find  plenty  of  old  stumps  with  mice  in  them.  And 
I  am  equally  sure  that  there  will  be  plenty  of  birds 
in  next  summer's  nests.;  so,  until  the  robins  come 
back  and  build  new  nests,  I  am  going  to  look  out 
of  the  window  these  dark  December  days,  and  think 
of  White-Foot  in  Robin's  old  nest,  high  up  there 
in  the  slender  sapling,  where  no  cat  can  climb  to 


1  THERE  HE  WILL  SWING  IN  THE  WINTER  GALES 


34  WINTER 

him,  and  where  no  crow  will  dare  come  to  tear  his 
house  to  pieces. 

There  he  will  swing  in  the  winter  gales  with  the 
snow  swirling  around  and  beneath  him ;  there  he 
will  dream  through  the  rain  and  the  slanting  sleet 
when  his  high  sapling  stairway  is  coated  with  ice 
and  impossible  for  him  to  climb ;  there  he  will  live, 
and  whenever  I  thump  with  the  tongs  at  his  outer 
gate,  up  there  in  the  little  round  doorway  will  ap- 
pear his  head  —  his  eyes,  I  should  say,  for  he  looks 
all  eyes  up  there,  so  large,  so  black,  so  innocent,  so 
inquiring  are  they,  so  near  to  rolling  off  down  the 
tip  of  his  nose  with  sheer  surprise. 

I  shall  have  many  a  cheering  glimpse  of  White- 
Foot,  many  a  comforting  thought  of  him,  out  there, 
his  thatch  snow-covered,  his  thick-walled  nest  in  the 
slender  hickory  riding  the  winter  seas  that  sweep 
the  hilltop,  as  safe  as  the  ships  anchored  yonder  in 
the  landlocked  harbor;  and  he  will  be  much  more 
comforting  to  me  out  there  than  here  in  the  house 
with  me;  for,  strangely  enough,  while  White-Foot 
never  seems  to  join  the  common  mice  in  the  barn, 
never  a  winter  goes  by  without  one  or  more  of  his 
kind  coming  into  the  house  for  the  cold  weather. 

This  would  be  very  pleasant  if  they  could  keep 
out  of  the  pop-corn  and  the  nuts  and  the  apples  and 
the  linen-drawers.  But  only  recently  one  got  into 
the  linen  in  the  china-closet,  and  chewed  together  the 
loveliest  damask  nest  that  any  being  ever  slept  in. 


WHITE-FOOT  35 

There  was  nothing  for  such  conduct,  then,  of 
course,  except  to  kill  her.  But  I  did  not  kill  her, 
though  I  take  no  credit  to  myself,  for  I  tried  to  kill 
her,  as  any  one  would  have  been  tempted  to  do. 

I  got  her  out  of  that  linen-drawer  in  a  hurry  and 
chased  her  from  cupboard  to  couch,  to  radiator  and 
bookcase,  and  lost  her.  The  next  day  I  resumed  the 
chase,  and  upset  most  of  the  furniture  before  she 
finally  gave  me  the  slip.  The  next  day  she  appeared, 
and  once  more  we  turned  things  upside  down,  and 
once  more  from  some  safe  corner  she  watched  me 
put  the  chairs  back  on  their  legs  and  pick  up  the 
pieces  of  things. 

But  the  next  morning,  as  I  opened  the  grate  of 
the  kitchen  stove  to  light  the  fire,  there  in  the  ash-pan 
huddled  that  little  mouse ;  and  under  her  in  a  bed 
of  ashes,  as  if  to  reproach 
me  forever,  were  five  wee 
mice,  just  born,  blind  and 
naked  in  the  choking  dust, 
babes  that  should  have  been 
sleeping  covered  in  a  bed  of  downy  damask  in  the 
linen-drawer. 

I  said  I  did  not  kill  her.  No,  I  reached  in  slowly, 
lifted  her  and  her  babes  out  softly  in  my  hand,  car- 
ried them  into  a  safe,  warm  place  and  left  them,  de- 
voutly hoping  that  they  might  all  grow  up  to  help 
themselves,  if  need  be,  to  an  ear  of  pop-corn,  or  even 
to  a  cozy  corner  and  a  sip  of  honey  in  the  beehives. 


36  WINTER 

No,  I  don't  believe  I  hoped  all  of  that,  for  White- 
Foot  is  exceedingly  fond  of  honey,  and  no  roof  in 
all  the  out-of-doors  is  so  much  to  his  liking  as  a 
beehive,  warm  with  the  heat  of  the  clustered  swarm ; 
and  nowhere  can  he  make  such  a  nuisance  of  him- 
self as  inside  the  hive. 

A  robin's  nest,  a  beehive,  a  linen-drawer,  a  wood- 
pecker's hole  —  almost  any  place  will  do  for  the 
winter  home,  so  thick  and  warm  can  the  mice  build 
their  walls,  so  many  bins  of  acorns  and  grain  do 
they  lay  up,  and  so  bold  are  they  to  forage  when 
their  winter  stores  run  low. 

I  had  a  curious  experience  with  a  white-footed 
mouse  in  the  cellar  one  winter.  The  small  boys  had 
carried  into  the  cellar  (to  hide  them  from  me,  I  im- 
agine) about  four  quarts  of  chestnuts  which  they  had 
gathered.  A  little  later,  when  they  went  to  get  their 
nuts,  the  box  was  empty.  Not  a  chestnut  left ! 

"Have  you  eaten  all  our  chestnuts,  father?" 

"  No,  I  haven't  —  not  a  nut,"  I  answered. 

"  Well,  they  are  all  gone  !  "  was  the  wail. 

And  so  they  were,  but  how,  and  where,  we  did 
not  know.  House  mice  had  not  eaten  them,  for  no 
shells  were  left  behind ;  there  were  no  rats  or  squirrels 
in  the  cellar  that  fall ;  and  as  for  one  of  the  small 
boys — that  was  past  thought.  The  fact  is,  more 
suspicion  was  attached  to  me  in  the  case  than  any- 
thing in  my  previous  conduct  called  for;  and,  though 
altogether  guiltless,  I  continued  to  be  uncomfort- 


WHITE-FOOT  37 

ably  quizzed  from  time  to  time  about  those  chest- 
nuts, until  I  began  to  wonder  if  I  had  got  up  in 
my  sleep  and  devoured  the  four  quarts,  shells  and 
all. 

Then  one  day,  while  we  were  putting  things  ship- 
shape in  the  vegetable  cellar,  what  did  we  come  upon 
but  a  nice  little  pile  of  chestnuts  hidden  away  in  a 
dark  corner ;  then  we  discovered  another  pile,  laid  up 
carefully,  neatly,  in  a  secret  spot,  where  no  human 
eye  —  except  the  human  house-cleaning  eye,  that 
misses  nothing — would  ever  have  seen  them,  and 
where  no  big  human  hand  would  ever  have  put 
them. 

I  was  allowed  to  go  then  and  there  scot-free;  and 
a  trap  was  set  for  the  wood  mouse.  It  was  White- 
Foot,  we  knew.  But  we  never  caught  her.  And  I 
am  glad  of  it,  for  after  we  took  away  what  chest- 
nuts we  could  find,  she  evidently  felt  it  necessary  to 
make  a  new  hoard,  and  began  with  a  handful  of  old 
hickory-nuts,  shagbarks,  that  had  been  left  in  the 
vegetable  cellar  beside  the  box  of  chestnuts. 

Now,  however,  she  felt  the  insecurity  of  the  inner 
cellar,  or  else  she  had  found  a  fine  big  bin  out  in 
the  furnace  cellaf,  for  out  there  by  the  furnace  she 
took  those  nuts  and  tucked  them  compactly  away 
into  the  toe  of  one  of  my  tall  hunting-boots. 

There  were  double  doors  and  a  brick  partition 
wall  between  the  two  cellars.  No  matter.  Here  were 
the  nuts  she  had  not  yet  stored ;  and  out  yonder 


38  WINTER 

was  the  hole,  smooth  and  deep  and  dark,  to  store 
them  in.  She  found  a  way  past  the  partition  wall. 

Every  morning  I  shook  those  nuts  out  of  my  boot 
and  sent  them  rattling  over  the  cellar  floor.  Every 

night  the  mouse  gathered 
them    up    and    put    them 
_^    snugly  back  into  the  toe 
of  the  boot.  She  could  not 
have    carried    more    than 
one  nut  at  a  time  —  up  the 
tall  boot-leg  and  down  the  oily,  slippery  inside. 

I  should  have  liked  to  see  her  scurrying  about  the 
cellar,  looking  after  her  curiously  difficult  harvest. 
Apparently,  they  were  new  nuts  to  her  every  evening. 
Once  I  came  down  to  find  them  lying  untouched. 
The  mouse,  perhaps,  was  away  over  night  on  other 
business.  But  the  following  morning  they  were  all 
gathered  and  nicely  packed  in  the  boot  as  before. 
And  as  before  I  sent  them  sixty  ways  among  the 
barrels  and  boxes  of  the  furnace  room. 

But  I  did  it  once  too  often,  for  it  dawned  upon 
the  mouse  one  night  that  these  were  the  same  old 
nuts  that  she  had  gathered  now  a  dozen  times.  That 
night  they  disappeared.  Where?  I  wondered. 

Weeks  passed,  and  I  had  entirely  forgotten  about 
the  nuts,  when  I  came  upon  them,  the  identical  nuts 
of  my  boot,  tiered  carefully  up  in  a  corner  of  the 
deep,  empty  water-tank  away  off  in  the  attic ! 


CHAPTER  IV 

A    CHAPTER    OF   THINGS    TO    SEE   THIS   WINTER 


THE  first  snowstorm !  I  would  not  miss  seeing 
the  first  snowstorm,  not  if  I  had  to  climb  up 
to  my  high,  tarry,  smoky  roof  in  the  city 
and  lie  down  on  my  back,  as  I  once  did,  in  order  to 
shut  out  everything  but  the  gray  wavering  flakes  that 
came  scattering  from  the  sky.  But  how  marvelously 
white  and  airy  they  looked,  too,  coming  down  over 
the  blackened  city  of  roofs,  transfiguring  it  with 
their  floating  veil  of  purity !  You  must  see  the  first 
snowfall,  and,  if  you  want  to,  jump  and  caper  with 
the  flakes,  as  I  always  do. 

II 

The  sorrows  of  winter  are  its  storms.  They  are  its 
greatest  glories  also.  One  should  no  more  miss  the 
sight  of  the  winter  storms  than  he  should  miss  the 
sight  of  the  winter  birds  and  stars,  the  winter  suns 
and  moons !  A  storm  in  summer  is  only  an  incident ; 
in  winter  it  is  an  event,  a  part  of  the  main  design. 
Nature  gives  herself  over  by  the  month  to  the  plan- 
ning and  bringing  off  of  the  winter  storms  —  vast 
arctic  shows,  the  dreams  of  her  wildest  moods,  the 


40 


WINTER 


work  of  her  mightiest  minions.  Do  not  miss  the  soft 
feathery  fall  that  plumes  the  trees  and  that  roofs 
the  sheds  with  Carrara  marble ;  the  howling  bliz- 
zard with  its  fine  cutting  blast  that  whirls  into 

o 

smoking  crests ;  the  ice-storm  that  comes  as  slow, 
soft  rain  to  freeze  as  it  falls,  turning  all  the  world  to 
crystal :  these  are  some  of  the  miracles  of  winter  that 
you  must  not  fail  to  see. 

Ill 

You  must  see  how  close  you  had  passed  to  and 
fro  all  summer  to  the  vireo's  nest,  hanging  from  the 


fork  on  a  branch  of  some  low  bush  or  tree,  so  near 
to  the  path  that  it  almost  brushed  your  hat.  Yet  you 
never  saw  it !  Go  on  and  make  a  study  of  the  empty 
nests;  see  particularly  how  many  of  them  were  built 


THINGS   TO  SEE   THIS   WINTER 


41 


out  along  the  roads  or  paths, 
as  if  the  builders  wished  to 
be  near  their  human  neigh- 
bors —  as,  indeed,  I  believe 
they  do.  Study  how  the  dif- 
ferent birds  build  —  materi- 
als,  shapes,  finish,  sup- 
?  ports ;  for  winter  is  the 
better  season  in  which 
to    make   such    study, 
the   summer   being   so 
crowded  with  interests 
of  its  own. 

IV 

When  the  snow  hardens, 
especially  after  a  strong  wind, 
go  out  to  see  what  you  can 
find  in  the  wind  furrows  of  the 
snow  —  in  the  holes,  hollows, 
pockets,  and  in  footprints 
y  in  the  snow.  Nothing? 

•  ^      Look    again,    closely  — 
that    dust  — 
wind-sweepings 
— seeds! 


42  WINTER 

Yes,  seeds.  Gather  several  small  boxes  of  them  and 
when  you  return  home  take  a  small  magnifying  glass 
and  make  them  out  —  the  sticktights,  gray  birches, 
yellow  birches,  pines,  ragweeds,  milfoil  —  I  cannot 
number  them !  It  is  a  lesson  in  the  way  the  winds 
and  the  snows  help  to  plant  the  earth.  Last  win- 
ter I  followed  for  some  distance  the  deep  frozen 
tracks  of  a  fox,  picking  out  the  various  seeds  that 
had  drifted  into  every  footprint,  just  so  far  apart, 
as  if  planted  in  the  snow  by  some  modern  plant- 
ing-machine. It  was  very  interesting. 

V 

When  the  snow  lies  five  or  six  inches  deep,  walk 
out  along  the  fence-rows,  roadsides,  and  old  fields 
to  see  the  j uncos,  the  sparrows,  and  goldfinches  feed- 
ing upon  the  seeds  of  the  dead  weeds  standing  stiff 
and  brown  above  the  snow.  Does  the  sight  mean 
anything  to  you?  What  does  it  mean? 

VI 
Burns  has  a  fine  poem  beginning  — 

"  When  biting  Boreas,  fell  and  doure, 
Sharp  shivers  thro'  the  leafless  bow'r," 

in  which,  he  asks, — 

"  Ilk  happing  bird  —  wee,  helpless  thing  !  — 

What  comes  o'  thee  ? 

Whare  wilt  thou  cow'r  thy  chittering  wing, 
An'  close  thy  e'e  ?  " 


THINGS  TO   SEE   THIS   WINTER          43 

Did  you  ever  ask  yourself  the  question  ?  Go  forth, 
then,  as  the  dusk  begins  to  fall  one  of  these  chill 
winter  days  and  try  to  see  "  what  comes  o' "  the 
birds,  where  they  sleep  these  winter  nights.  You 
will  find  an  account  of  my  own  watching  in  a  chapter 
called  "Birds'  Winter  Beds"  in  "Wild  Life  Near 
Home." 

VII 

You  will  come  back  from  your  watching  in  the  dusk 
with  the  feeling  that  a  winter  night  for  the  birds 
is  unspeakably  dreary,  perilous,  and  chill.  You  will 
close  the  door  on  the  darkness  outside  with  a  shiver 
as  much  from  dread  as  from  the  cold. 

"  Listening  the  doors  an'  winnocks  rattle,"  — 

you  will  think  of  the  partridge  beneath  the  snow,  the 
crow  in  his  swaying  pine-top,  the  kinglet  in  the  close- 
armed  cedar,  the  wild  duck  riding  out  the  storm  in 
his  freezing  water-hole,  and  you  will  be  glad  for 
your  four  thick  walls  and  downy  blankets,  and  you 
will  wonder  how  any  creature  can  live  through  the 
long,  long  night  of  cold  and  dark  and  storm.  But 
there  is  another  view  of  this  same  picture;  another 
picture,  rather,  of  this  same  stormy,  bitter  night 
which  you  must  not  miss  seeing.  Go  out  to  see  how 
the  animals  sleep,  what  beds  they  have,  what  covers 
to  keep  off  the  cold:  the  mice  in  the  corn-shocks; 
the  muskrats  in  their  thick  mud  homes;  the  red 
squirrels  in  their  rocking,  wind-swung  beds,  so  soft 


44  WINTER 

with  cedar  bark  and  so  warm  that  never  a  tooth  of 
the  cold  can  bite  through  ! 

"  I  heard  nae  mair,  for  Chanticleer 

Shook  off  the  pouthery  snaw, 
And  hail'd  the  morning  with  a  cheer, 
A  cottage-rousing  craw." 

VIII 

This  winter  I  have  had  two  letters  asking  me  how 
best  to  study  the  mosses  and  lichens,  and  I  answered, 
"  Begin  now."  Winter,  when  the  leaves  are  off,  the 
ground  bare,  the  birds  and  flowers  gone,  and  all  is 
reduced  to  singleness  and  simplicity  —  winter  is  the 
time  to  observe  the  shapes,  colors,  varieties,  and 
growth  of  the  lichens.  Not  that  every  lover  of  na- 
ture needs  to  know  the  long  Latin  names  (and  many 
of  these  lesser  plants  have  no  other  names),  but  that 
every  lover  of  the  out-of-doors  should  notice  them  — 
the  part  they  play  in  the  color  of  things,  the  place 
they  hold  in  the  scheme  of  things,  their  exquisite 
shapes  and  strange  habits. 

IX 

You  should  see  the  brook,  "bordered  with  spark- 
ling frost-work  ...  as  gay  as  with  its  fringe  of 
summer  flowers."  You  should  examine  under  a 
microscope  the  wonderful  crystal  form  of  the  snow- 
flakes  —  each  flake  shaped  by  an  infinitely  accurate 
hand  according  to  a  pattern  that  seems  the  perfec- 
tion, the  very  poetry,  of  mechanical  drawing. 


THINGS   TO   SEE   THIS   WINTER          45 


What  a  world  of  gray  days,  waste  lands,  bare 
woods,  and  frozen  waters  there  is  to  see !  And  you 
should  see  them  —  gray  and  bare  and  waste  and 
frozen.  But  what  is  a  frozen  pond  for  if  not  to  be 
skated  on  ?  and  waste  white  lands,  but  to  go  sleigh- 
ing over?  and  cold  gray  days,  but  so  many  oppor- 
tunities to  stay  indoors  with  your  good  books  ? 

See  the  winter  bleak  and  cheerless  as  at  times 
you  will,  and  as  at  times  you  ought ;  still  if  you  will 
look  twice,  and  think  as  you  look,  you  will  see  the 
fishermen  on  the  ponds  catching  pickerel  through  the 
ice  —  life  swimming  there  under  the  frozen  surface  ! 
You  will  see  the  bare  empty  woodland  fresh  budded 
to  the  tip  of  each  tiny  twig  —  life  all  over  the  trees 
thrust  forward  to  catch  the  touch  of  spring  !  You 
will  see  the  wide  flinty  fields  thick  sown  with  seeds 
—  life,  more  life  than  the  sun  and  the  soil  can  feed, 
sleeping  there  under  "  the  tender,  sculpturesque, 
immaculate,  warming,  fertilizing  snow  "  ! 


CHAPTER  V 

CHRISTMAS    IN    THE    WOODS 

"  'T  was  the  night  before  Christmas,  and  all  through  the  house 
Not  a  creature  was  stirring,  not  even  a  mouse." 

BUT  on  the  night  before  this  particular  Christ- 
mas every  creature  of  the  woods  that  could 
stir  was  up  and  stirring;  for  over  the  old  snow 
was  falling  swiftly,  silently,  a  soft,  fresh  covering  that 
might  mean  a  hungry  Christmas  unless  the  dinner 
were  had  before  morning. 

Yet,  when  the  morning  dawned,  a  cheery  Christ- 
mas sun  broke  across  the  great  gum  swamp,  lighting 
the  snowy  boles  and  soft-piled  limbs  of  the  giant 
trees  with  indescribable  glory,  and  pouring,  a  golden 
flood,  into  the  deep,  spongy  bottom  of  the  swamp  be- 
low. It  would  be  a  perfect  Christmas  in  the  woods, 
clear,  mild,  stirless,  with  silent  footing  for  me,  and 
everywhere  the  telltale  snow. 

And  everywhere  in  the  woods  would  be  the  Christ- 
mas spirit,  too.  As  I  paused  among  the  pointed  ce- 
dars of  the  pasture,  looking  down  into  the  tangle  at 
the  head  of  the  swamp,  a  clear,  wild  whistle  rang  in 
the  thicket,  followed  by  a  flash  through  the  alders 
like  a  tongue  of  fire,  as  a  cardinal  grosbeak  shot  down 
to  the  tangle  of  greenbrier  and  magnolia  under  the 


CHRISTMAS   IN   THE   WOODS  47 

slope  of  the  hill.  The  bird  was  a  fleck  of  flaming 
summer.  As  warm  as  summer,  too,  were  the  pointed 
cones  of  stag-horn  sumac  burning  on  the  crest  of  the 
ridge  against  the  group  of  holly  trees — trees  as  fresh 
as  April,  and  all  aglow  with  red  berries. 

The  woods  were  decorated  for  the  Holy  Day.  The 
gentleness  of  the  soft,  new  snow  touched  everything; 
cheer  and  good-will  lighted  the  unclouded  sky  and 
warmed  the  thick  depths  of  the  evergreens,  and 
blazed  in  the  crimson-berried  bushes  of  the  ilex  and 
the  alder.  The  Christmas  woods  were  glad.  The  heart 
of  the  woods  was  full  of  Christmas  peace. 

Now  I  did  not  imagine  all  of  this  as  I  went  along. 
Perhaps  there  was  the  spirit  of  Christmas  in  my 
heart,  and  so  I  found  the  spirit  of  Christmas  in  the 
woods ;  but  so  it  must  have  been  with  the  household 
I  had  just  left,  back  on  the  city  street.  Every  one 
had  Christmas  in  his  heart,  and  so  every  one  found 
Christmas  in  the  Christmas-tree  blazing  and  glitter- 
ing in  its  candle-flame  blossoms  and  jeweled  fruit. 

So  there  was  real  Christmas  joy  and  peace  —  a 
real  Christmas  spirit  —  abroad  in  the  woods  this 
snowy  Christmas  morning.  The  sky  had  it,  the  trees 
had  it,  the  soft  white  slopes  had  it,  the  softly  flow- 
ing creek  had  it,  flowing  softly  toward  the  bay. 

But  doubtless  my  own  feelings  had  something  to 
do  with  it  all.  This  was  Christmas  Day,  and  these 
were  my  home  woods,  the  woods  where  I  tramped 
and  trapped  and  "grew  up  "  when  a  boy ;  and  this  was 


48  WINTER 

I,  after  twenty  years  of  absence,  I,  the  boy  again, 
back  in  the  old  familiar  pasture  on  my  way  to  Lap- 
ton's  Pond  ! 

Yes,  I  must  say  that  I  was  almost  afraid  as  I  fol- 
lowed the  old  cow-path  across  the  pasture,  now  only 
a  slightly  sunken  line  in  the  snow ;  I  was  afraid  that 
the  path  might  be  gone.  Twenty  years  are  a  good 
many  years  for  a  cow-path  to  last.  But  evidently 
the  cows  had  been  crossing  every  year  since  I  had 
been  away  ;  and  not  a  single  new  crook  had  they 
worn  in  the  old  winding  trail.  Then  I  was  afraid,  as 
I  came  to  the  fence  where  I  could  look  down  upon 
the  pond,  lest  the  pond  might  have  disappeared. 
But  no,  there  it  lay,  sealed  over,  as  if  kept  for  me 
by  the  snow  !  Then  I  looked  fearfully  over  the  pond, 
over  the  steep  ridge  on  the  opposite  shore  to  where 
there  used  to  stand  two  particular  persimmon  trees. 

My  heart  beat  wildly  for  a  moment.  The  woods 
up  the  ridge  had  been  cut  off  !  Things  had  changed ! 
I  was  confused  and  looked  this  way  and  that,  when, 
so  near  to  me  that  I  could  scarcely  believe  my  eyes, 
I  saw  the  twin  trees,  their  hard,  angular  limbs  closely 
globed  with  fruit,  and  standing  softly  out  against 
the  sky! 

It  was  enough.  Forgetting  the  twenty  years, 
I  hurried  down  across  the  pond  and  up  to  the  per- 
simmon trees  on  the  other  side  —  up  into  the  trees 
indeed,  for  I  never  stopped  until  I  had  climbed  clear 
up  into  the  top  among  the  ripe  persimmons! 


CHRISTMAS   IN   THE   WOODS  49 

Do  you  know  what  a  persimmon,  picked  from  a 
particular  tree  along  Cohansey  Creek  on  Christmas 
Day,  tastes  like  ?  especially  when  you  have  not  had 
a  taste  of  persimmon  for  twenty  years?  No,  you  do 
not  —  because  you  are  not  twenty  years  old,  perhaps, 
and  because  you  were  not  a  boy  along  Cohansey 
Creek,  perhaps,  and  because,  if  you  were,  you  did 
not  know  those  two  particular  persimmon  trees, 
maybe. 

Nobody  ever  seemed  to  know  the  perfection  of 
those  persimmons,  except  myself  and  the  'possums. 
Not  one  of  the  Luptons,  who  owned  the  pasture,  the 
pond,  and  the  trees,  had  ever  been  a  boy,  so  far  as 
I  could  remember,  and  certainly  not  one  of  them 
had  ever  tasted  the  fruit  of  those  two  trees.  There 
were  other  persimmon  trees  up  and  down  the  town- 
ship, others  here  along  the  pond ;  but  these  two  were 
the  only  trees  to  hold  their  fruit  until  Christmas, 
preserved  with  such  richness  of  flavor,  such  a  gummy, 
candied,  wild,  woodsy  quality,  that  it  could  not  decay. 
Those  persimmons  never  decayed.  They  candied, 
evaporated,  wrinkled,  fell,  and  vanished  away. 

Or  else  the  'possums  ate  them  —  those  that  I  did 
not  eat.  A  'possum  had  already  been  here  this 
Christmas  morning  before  me.  I  had  noted  his  fresh 
tracks  beneath  the  tree  when  I  came  up ;  and  now, 
in  the  tree,  I  saw  where  the  snow  had  been  brushed 
from  several  of  the  large  limbs  as  the  'possum  had 
moved  about  in  the  top,  eating  his  Christmas  dinner. 


50  WINTER 

You  never  ate  a  Christmas  dinner  high  up  in  the 
top  of  a  persimmon  tree?  But  you  will,  perhaps,  some 
day,  as  good  a  Christmas  dinner,  I  hope,  as  ours  was. 

For  such  persimmons ! 
Bob  Cratchit's  goose 
("  There  never  was  such 
a  goose ! ")  could  not 


have  been  any  better  flavored.  Nor 
could  the  little  Cratchits  have  been 
any  hungrier  for  goose  than  I  was 
for  persimmons. 
Now  the  'possum  had  been  having  persimmons 
every  night  since  the  frosts  of  October;  so  of  course 
he  felt  no  such  hunger  for  persimmons  as  I  felt.  But 
ripe  persimmons  would  be  a  Christmas  dinner  for  a 
'possum  every  day  in  the  year.  There  is  nothing  so 
unspeakably  good  as  persimmons  if  you  happen  to 
be  a  'possum,  or  if  you  happen  to  be  a  boy  —  even 
after  twenty  years ! 

So  the  'possum  and  I  had  our  Christmas  dinner 
together  at  Nature's  invitation,  in  the  top  of  the 


CHRISTMAS   IN   THE   WOODS  51 

persimmon  tree.  The  'possum,  to  be  sure,  had  eaten 
and  gone  before  I  came.  But  that  is  good  form  in 
the  woods.  He  was  expecting  me,  so  he  came  early, 
just  before  dawn,  that  neither  of  us  might  be  em- 
barrassed, leaving  his  greetings  for  me  in  sign-lan- 
guage in  the  snow. 

A  Christmas  dinner  all  alone  would  be  cold  cheer 
indeed.  But  I  was  not  alone.  Here  was  good  com- 
pany and  plenty  of  it.  Did  not  the  tracks  talk  to  me? 
With  abundance  of  fruit  still  left  in  the  tree,  did  I 
need  to  see  that  'possum  fold  up  his  napkin,  pull 
down  his  vest,  spread  his  hands  over  his  expansive 
person  and  groan  in  the  fullness  of  his  feast  ?  No ;  all 
of  that  was  printed  plainly  in  the  snow.  Why,  I  could 
even  hear  his  groans  in  his  tumbled  tracks  at  the 
foot  of  the  tree,  where  the  fat  old  fellow  had  liter- 
ally fallen  over  himself !  What  an  appetite !  What  a 
pudding  of  persimmons  he  must  be !  He  can  hardly 
walk  for  fat !  Look  at  his  trail  in  the  snow  leading 
down  toward  the  pond  —  a  big  wide  wallow  where 
he  has  bounced  along ! 

So  I  slide  down  the  tree  and  take  up  the  'possum's 
trail.  We  have  broken  bread  together,  this  'possum 
and  I,  and  now  we  will  enter  the  woods  together  in 
the  same  good-fellowship  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 
Persimmons  and  good-will  are  very  proper  things 
to  be  filled  with  when  you  go  into  the  Christmas 
woods. 

And  there  is  no  better  fellowship  for  such  a  tramp 


52  WINTER 

than  the  trail  of  some  animal  like  the  'possum  or  the 
mink  or  the  fox.  To  go  in  with  one  of  these  through 
the  woods-door  is  to  find  yourself  at  home.  Any  one 
can  manage  to  get  inside  the  woods,  as  the  grocery 
boy  or  the  census  man  manages  to  get  inside  our 
houses.  You  can  bolt  in  at  any  time  on  business. 
But  a  trail,  remember,  is  Nature's  invitation.  Go 
softly  in  with  'possum,  or  rabbit,  or  coon,  and  at  the 
threshold  of  the  trees  you  will  be  met  by  the  Spirit 
of  the  Woods  —  you  will  be  made  a  guest  in  this 
secret,  shadowy  house  of  the  out-of-doors. 

But  do  not  fail  first  to  break  bread  with  the 
'possum.  A  persimmon,  or  a  handful  of  wintergreen 
berries,  or  a  nip  of  sassafras  root,  or  a  piece  of  spruce 
gum,  or  a  lump  of  liquid  amber — share  anything, 
take  any  small  part  in  the  life  of  these  who  live  wild 
in  the  woods,  and  they  will  meet  you  at  the  thresh- 
old and  make  you  more  than  welcome. 

I  went  in  with  the  'possum.  He  had  traveled 
home  leisurely  and  without  fear,  as  his  tracks  plainly 
showed.  He  was  full  of  persimmons.  A  good  happy 
world  this,  where  such  fare  could  be  had  for  the 
picking !  What  need  to  hurry  home  ?  Unless,  indeed, 
one  were  in  danger  of  falling  asleep  by  the  way !  So  I 
thought,  too,  as  I  followed  his  winding  path ;  and  if 
I  was  tracking  him  to  his  den,  it  was  only  to  wake 
him  for  a  moment  with  the  compliments  of  the 
season.  But  when  I  finally  found  him  in  his  hollow 
gum,  he  was  so  sound  asleep  he  barely  knew  that 


CHRISTMAS   IN   THE   WOODS  53 

some  one  was  poking"  him  gently  in  the  ribs  and 
wishing1  him  a  merry  Christmas. 

The  'possum  had  led  me  far  along  the  creek  to 
the  centre  of  the  empty,  hollow  swamp,  where  the 
great-boled  gums  lifted  their  branches  like  a  tim- 
bered, unshingled  roof  between  me  and  the  wide 
sky.  Far  away  through  the  spaces  of  the  rafters  I 
saw  a  pair  of  wheeling  buzzards,  and  under  them,  in 
lesser  circles,  a  broad-winged  hawk.  Here,  at  the 
feet  of  the  tall,  clean  trees,  looking  up  through  the 
leafless  limbs,  I  had  something  of  a  measure  for 
the  flight  of  the  great  birds.  And  what  power, 
what  majesty  and  mystery  in  those  distant  buoyant 
wings ! 

I  have  seen  the  turkey  buzzard  sailing  the  skies 
on  the  bitterest  winter  days.  To-day,  however,  could 
hardly  be  called  winter.  Indeed,  nothing  yet  had 
felt  the  pinch  of  the  cold.  There  was  no  hunger  yet 
in  the  swamp,  though  this  new  snow  had  scared  the 
raccoons  out,  and  their  half-human  tracks  along  the 
margin  of  the  swamp  stream  showed  that,  if  not 
hungry,  they  at  least  feared  that  they  might  be. 

For  a  coon  hates  snow.  He  invariably  stays  in  dur- 
ing the  first  light  snowfalls,  and  even  in  the  late 
winter  he  will  not  venture  forth  in  fresh  snow  unless 
driven  by  hunger  or  some  other  dire  need.  Perhaps, 
like  a  cat  or  a  hen,  he  dislikes  the  wetting  of  his 
feet.  Or  it  may  be  that  the  soft  snow  makes  bad 
hunting  —  for  him.  The  truth  is,  I  believe,  that 


54  WINTER 

such  a  snow  makes  too  good  hunting  for  the  dogs 
and  the  gunner.  The  new  snow  tells  too  clear  a 
story.  For  the  coon's  home  is  no  dark  den  among  the 
ledges ;  only  a  hollow  in  some  ancient  oak  or  tupelo. 
Once  within,  he  is  safe  from  the  dogs,  but  his  long, 
fierce  fight  for  life  taught  him  generations  ago  that 
the  nest-tree  is  a  fatal  trap  when  behind  the  dogs 
come  the  axe  and  the  gun.  So  he  has  grown  wary 
and  enduring.  He  waits  until  the  snow  grows  crusty, 
when  without  sign,  and  almost  without  scent,  he  can 
slip  forth  among  the  long  shadows  and  prowl  to  the 
edge  of  dawn. 

Skirting  the  stream  out  toward  the  higher  back 
woods,  I  chanced  to  spy  a  bunch  of  snow  in  one  of 
the  great  sour  gums,  that  I  thought  was  an  old  nest. 
A  second  look  showed  me  tiny  green  leaves,  then 
white  berries,  then  mistletoe! 

It  was  not  a  surprise,  however,  for  I  had  found  it 
here  before  —  a  long,  long  time  before.  It  was  back 
in  my  schoolboy  days  that  I  first  stood  here  under 
the  mistletoe  and  had  my  first  romance.  There  was 
no  chandelier,  no  pretty  girl,  in  that  romance  —  only 
a  boy,  the  mistletoe,  the  giant  trees,  and  the  sombre 
silent  swamp.  But  there  was  more  than  that,  there 
was  the  thrill  of  discovery,  for  until  that  day  the 
boy  did  not  know  that  mistletoe  grew  outside  of  Eng- 
land, did  not  know  that  it  grew  in  his  own  native 
swamps  !  Rambling  alone  through  the  swamps  along 
the  creek  that  day,  he  stopped  under  a  big  curious 


CHRISTMAS   IN  THE   WOODS  55 

bunch  of  green,  high  up  in  one  of  the  gums,  and  — 
made  his  first  discovery ! 

So  this  Christmas  Day  the  boy  climbed  up  again 
at  the  peril  of  his  precious  neck,  and  brought  down 
a  bit  of  that  old  romance. 

I  followed  the  stream  along  through  the  swamp 
to  the  open  meadows,  and  then  on  under  the  steep 
wooded  hillside  that  ran  up  to  the  higher  land  of 
corn  and  melon  fields.  Here  at  the  foot  of  the  slope 
the  winter  sun  lay  warm,  and  here  in  the  sheltered, 
briery  border  I  came  upon  the  Christmas  birds. 

There  was  a  great  variety  of  them,  feeding  and 
preening  and  chirping  in  the  vines.  The  tangle  was 
a-twitter  with  their  quiet,  cheery  talk.  Such  a  medley 
of  notes  you  could  not  hear  at  any  other  season  out- 
side a  city  bird  store.  How  far  the  different  species 
understood  one  another  I  should  like  to  know,  and 
whether  the  hum  of  voices  meant  sociability  to  them, 
as  it  certainly  did  to  me.  Doubtless  the  first  cause  of 
their  flocking  here  was  the  sheltered  warmth  and 
the  great  numbers  of  berry-laden  bushes,  for  there 
was  no  lack  of  abundance  or  of  variety  on  this 
Christmas  table. 

In  sight  from  where  I  stood  hung  bunches  of 
withering  chicken,  or  frost,  grapes,  plump  clusters 
of  blue-black  berries  of  the  greenbrier,  and  limbs  of 
the  smooth  winterberry  beaded  with  their  flaming 
fruit.  There  were  bushes  of  crimson  ilex,  too,  trees 


56  WINTER 

of  fruiting  dogwood  and  holly,  cedars  in  berry, 
dwarf  sumac  and  seedy  sedges,  while  patches  on  the 
wood  slopes  uncovered  by  the  sun  were  spread  with 
trailing  partridge-berry  and  the  coral-fruited  winter- 
green.  I  had  eaten  part  of  my  dinner  with  the  'pos- 
sum ;  now  I  picked  a  quantity  of  these  wintergreen 
berries,  and  continued  my  meal  with  the  birds. 
And  they  too,  like  the  'possum,  had  enough,  and 
to  spare. 

Among  the  birds  in  the  tangle  was  a  large  flock 
of  northern  fox  sparrows,  whose  vigorous  and  con- 
tinuous scratching  in  the  bared  spots  made  a  most 
lively  and  cheery  commotion.  Many  of  them  were 
splashing  about  in  tiny  pools  of  snow-water,  melted 
partly  by  the  sun  and  partly  by  the  warmth  of  their 
bodies  as  they  bathed.  One  would  hop  to  a  softening 
bit  of  snow  at  the  base  of  a  tussock,  keel  over  and 
begin  to  flop,  soon  sending  up  a  shower  of  sparkling 
drops  from  his  rather  chilly  tub.  A  winter  snow- 
water bath  seemed  a  necessity,  a  luxury  indeed;  for 
they  all  indulged,  splashing  with  the  same  purpose 
and  zest  that  they  put  into  their  scratching  among 
the  leaves. 

A  much  bigger  splashing  drew  me  quietly  through 
the  bushes  to  find  a  marsh  hawk  giving  himself  a 
Christmas  souse.  The  scratching,  washing,  and  talk- 
ing of  the  birds;  the  masses  of  green  in  the  cedars, 
holly,  and  laurels;  the  glowing  colors  of  the  berries 
against  the  snow ;  the  blue  of  the  sky,  and  the  golden 


CHRISTMAS   IN   THE   WOODS  57 

warmth  of  the  light  made  Christmas  in  the  heart  of 
the  noon,  that  the  very  swamp  seemed  to  feel. 

Two  months  later  there  was  to  be  scant  picking 
here,  for  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  severest  win- 
ter I  ever  knew.  From  this  very  ridge,  in  February, 
I  had  reports  of  berries  gone,  of  birds  starving,  of 
whole  coveys  of  quail  frozen  dead  in  the  snow ;  but 
neither  the  birds  nor  I  dreamed  to-day  of  any  such 
hunger  and  death.  A  flock  of  robins  whirled  into 
the  cedars  above  me ;  a  pair  of  cardinals  whistled 
back  and  forth ;  tree  sparrows,  juncos,  nuthatches, 
chickadees,  and  cedar-birds  cheeped  among  the  trees 
and  bushes;  and  from  the  farm  lands  at  the  top  of 
the  slope  rang  the  calls  of  meadowlarks. 

Halfway  up  the  hill  I  stopped  under  a  blackjack 
oak,  where,  in  the  thin  snow,  there  were  signs  of 
something  like  a  Christmas  revel.  The  ground  was 
sprinkled  with  acorn-shells  and  trampled  over  with 
feet  of  several  kinds  and  sizes,  —  quail,  jay,  and 
partridge  feet ;  rabbit,  squirrel,  and  mouse  feet,  all 
over  the  snow  as  the  feast  of  acorns  had  gone  on. 
Hundreds  of  the  acorns  were  lying  about,  gnawed 
away  at  the  cup  end,  where  the  shell  was  thinnest, 
many  of  them  further  broken  and  cleaned  out  by  the 
birds. 

As  I  sat  studying  the  signs  in  the  snow,  my  eye 
caught  a  tiny  trail  leading  out  from  the  others  straight 
away  toward  a  broken  pile  of  cord-wood.  The  tracks 
were  planted  one  after  the  other,  so  directly  in  line 


58 


WINTER 


as  to  seem  like  the  prints  of  a  single  foot.  "  That 's 
a  weasel's  trail/'  I  said,  "the  death's-head  at  this 
feast/'  and  followed  it  slowly  to  the  pile  of  wood.  A 
shiver  crept  over  me  as  I  felt,  even  sooner  than  I 
saw,  a  pair  of  small,  sinister  eyes  fixed  upon  mine. 


The  evil  pointed  head,  heavy  but  alert,  and  with  a 
suggestion  of  fierce  strength  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  slender  body,  was  watching  me  from  between 
the  sticks  of  cord-wood.  And  just  so  had  it  been 
watching  the  mice  and  the  rabbits  and  the  birds 
feasting  under  the  tree! 

I  packed  a  ball  of  snow  round  and  hard,  slipped 
forward  upon  my  knees  and  hurled  it.  Spat !  it 
struck  the  end  of  a  stick  within  an  inch  of  the  ugly 
head,  nearly  filling  the  crevice  with  snow.  Instantly 
the  head  appeared  at  another  crack,  and  another  ball 


CHRISTMAS    IN   THE   WOODS  59 

struck  viciously  beside  it.  Now  it  was  back  where  it 
first  appeared,  nor  did  it  flinch  for  the  next  ball,  or 
the  next.  The  third  went  true,  striking  with  a  chug 
and  packing  the  crack.  But  the  black,  hating  eyes 
were  still  watching  me  a  foot  lower  down. 

It  is  not  all  peace  and  good-will  in  the  Christmas 
woods.  But  happily  the  weasels  are  few.  More 
friendly  and  timid  eyes  were  watching  me  than  bold 
and  murderous.  It  was  foolish  to  want  to  kill  —  even 
the  weasel,  for  one's  woods  are  what  one  makes  them. 
And  so  I  let  the  man  with  the  gun,  who  just  then 
chanced  along,  think  that  I  had  turned  boy  again, 
and  was  snowballing  the  woodpile  just  for  the  fun 
of  trying  to  hit  the  end  of  the  biggest  stick. 

I  was  glad  he  had  come.  The  sight  of  him  took 
all  hatred  out  of  me.  As  he  strode  off  with  his  stained 
bag  I  felt  kindlier  toward  the  weasel  —  there  were 
worse  in  the  woods  than  he.  He  must  kill  to  live, 
and  if  he  gloated  over  the  kill,  why,  what  fault  of 
his?  But  the  other,  the  one  with  the  blood-stained 
game-bag,  he  killed  for  the  love  of  killing.  I  was 
glad  he  had  gone. 

The  crows  were  winging  over  toward  their  great 
roost  in  the  pines  when  I  turned  toward  the  town. 
They,  too,  had  had  good  picking  along  the  creek 
flats  and  the  ditches  of  the  meadows.  Their  powerful 
wing-beats  and  constant  play  up  in  the  air  told  of 
full  crops  and  no  fear  for  the  night,  already  softly 
gray  across  the  silent  fields. 


60  WINTER 

The  air  was  crisper;  the  snow  began  to  crackle 
under  foot ;  the  twigs  creaked  and  rattled  as  I  brushed 
along;  a  brown  beech  leaf  wavered  down  and  skated 
with  a  thin  scratch  over  the  crust ;  and  pure  as  the 
snow-wrapped  crystal  world,  and  sweet  as  the  soft 
gray  twilight,  came  the  call  of  a  quail. 

These  were  not  the  voices,  colors,  odors,  and  forms 
of  summer.  The  very  face  of  things  had  changed ; 
all  had  been  reduced,  made  plain,  simple,  single,  pure ! 
There  was  less  for  the  senses,  but  how  much  keener 
now  their  joy !  The  wide  landscape,  the  frosty  air, 
the  tinkle  of  tiny  icicles,  and,  out  of  the  quiet  of  the 
falling  twilight,  the  voice  of  the  quail ! 

There  is  no  day  but  is  beautiful  in  the  woods ; 
and  none  more  beautiful  than  one  like  this  Christmas 
Day  —  warm,  and  still,  and  wrapped  to  the  round 
red  berries  of  the  holly  in  the  magic  of  the  snow. 


CHAPTER   VI 

CHICKADEE 

I  WAS  crunching  along  through  the  January 
dusk  toward  home.    The  cold  was  bitter.    A 
half -starved  partridge  had  just  risen  from  the 
road  and  fluttered  off  among  the  naked  bushes  —  a 
bit  of  life  vanishing  into  the  winter  night  of  the 
woods.  I  knew  the  very  hemlock  in  which  he  would 
roost ;  but  what  were  the  thick,  snow-bent  boughs 
of  his  hemlock,  and  what  were  all  his  winter  feath- 
ers in  such  a  night  as  this  ?  —  this  night  of  cutting 
winds  and  frozen  snow  ! 

The  road  dipped  from  the  woods  down  into  a 
wide,  open  meadow,  where  the  winds  were  free.  The 
cold  was  driving,  numbing  here,  with  a  power  for 
death  that  the  thermometer  could  not  mark.  I 
backed  against  the  gale  and  sidewise  hastened  for- 
ward toward  the  double  line  of  elms  that  arched 
the  road  in  front  of  the  house.  Already  I  could 
hear  them  creak  and  rattle  like  things  of  glass.  It 
was  not  the  sound  of  life.  Nothing  was  alive ;  for 
what  could  live  in  this  long  darkness  and  fearful 
cold? 

The  question  was  hardly  thought,  when  an  answer 
was  whirled  past  me  into  the  nearest  of  the  naked 


62 


WINTER 


elms.  A  chickadee  !  He  caught  for  an  instant  on  a 
dead  stub  of  a  limb  that  stuck  out  over  the  road, 

scrambled  along  to  its 
broken  tip,  and  whisked 
into  a  hole  that  ran 
straight  down  the  cen- 
tre of  the  old  stub, 
down,  for  I  don't  know 
how  far. 

I  stopped.  The  limb 
lay  out  upon  the  wind, 
with  only  an  eddy  of 
the  gale  sucking  at  the 
little  round  hole  in  the 
broken  end,  while  some- 
where far  down  in  its 
hollow  heart,  huddling  himself  into  a  downy,  dozy 
ball  for  the  night,  had  crept  the  chickadee.  I  knew 
by  the  very  way  he  struck  the  limb  and  by  the  way 
he  turned  in  at  the  hole  that  he  had  been  there 
before.  He  knew  whither,  across  the  sweeping  mead- 
ows, he  was  being  blown.  He  had  even  helped  the 
winds  as  they  whirled  him,  for,  having  tarried  along 
the  roads  until  late,  he  was  in  a  great  hurry  to  get 
home.  But  he  was  safe  for  the  night  now,  in  the  very 
bed,  it  may  be,  where  he  was  hatched  last  summer, 
and  where  at  this  moment,  who  knows,  were  crowded 
half  a  dozen  other  chickadees,  the  rest  of  that  last 
summer's  brood,  unharmed  still,  and  still  sharing  the 


CHICKADEE  63 

old  home  hollow,  where  they  were  as  snug  and  warm 
this  fierce,  wild  night  as  ever  they  were  in  the  soft 
May  days  when  they  nestled  here  together. 

The  cold  drove  me  on  ;  but  the  sight  of  the  chicka* 
dee  had  warmed  me,  and  all  my  shivering  world  of 
night  and  death.  And  so  he  ever  does.  For  the  win- 
ter has  yet  to  be  that  drives  him  seeking  shelter  to 
the  sunny  south.  I  never  knew  it  colder  than  in 
January  and  February  of  1904.  During  both  of 
those  months  I  drove  morning  and  evening  through 
a  long  mile  of  empty,  snow-buried  woods.  For  days 
at  a  time  I  would  not  see  even  a  crow,  but  morning 
and  evening  at  a  certain  dip  in  the  road  two  chicka- 
dees would  fly  from  bush  to  bush  across  the  hollow 
and  cheer  me  on  my  way. 

They  came  out  to  the  road,  really  to  pick  up  what- 
ever scanty  crumbs  of  food  were  to  be  found  in 
my  wake.  They  came  also  to  hear  me,  and  to  see 
me  go  past  —  to  escape  for  a  moment,  I  think,  from 
the  silence,  the  desertion,  and  the  death  of  the 
woods.  They  helped  me  to  escape,  too. 

Four  other  chickadees,  all  winter  long,  ate  with 
us  at  the  house,  sharing,  so  far  as  the  double  windows 
would  allow,  the  cheer  of  our  dining-room.  We  served 
them  their  meals  on  the  lilac  bush  outside  the  win- 
dow, tying  their  suet  on  so  that  they  could  see  us 
and  we  could  see  them  during  meal-time.  Perhaps 
it  was  mere  suet,  and  nothing  else  at  all,  that  they 
got ;  but  constantly,  when  our  "  pie  was  opened,  the 


64  WINTER 

birds  began  to  sing  "  —  a  dainty  dish  indeed,  a  dish 
of  live,  happy  chickadees  that  fed  our  souls. 

There  are  states  in  the  far  Northwest  where  the 
porcupine  is  protected  by  law,  as  a  last  food  resource 
for  men  who  are  lost  and  starving  in  the  forests. 
Porcupine  is  so  slow  that  a  dying  man  can  catch  him 
and  make  a  meal  on  him.  Perhaps  the  porcupine  was 
not  designed  by  nature  for  any  such  purpose,  and 
would  not  approve  of  it  at  all.  Perhaps  Chickadee 
was  not  left  behind  by  Summer  to  feed  my  lost  and 
starving  hope  through  the  cheerless  months  of  win- 
ter. But  that  is  the  use  I  make  of  him.  He  is  Sum- 
mer's pledge  to  me.  He  tells  me  that  this  winter 
world  is  a  living  world  and  not  a  dreary  world  of 
death.  The  woods  are  hollow,  the  winds  are  chill, 
the  earth  is  cold  and  stiff,  but  there  flits  Chickadee, 
and  —  I  cannot  lose  faith,  nor  feel  that  this  proces- 
sion of  bleak  white  days  is  all  a  funeral !  If  Chicka- 
dee can  live,  then  so  can  I. 

He  is  the  only  bird  in  my  out-of-doors  that  I  can 
find  without  fail  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days 
in  the  year.  From  December  to  the  end  of  March  he 
comes  daily  to  my  lilac  bush  for  suet ;  from  April 
to  early  July  he  is  busy  with  domestic  cares  in  the 
gray  birches  down  the  hillside;  from  August  to 
December  he  and  his  family  come  hunting  quietly 
and  sociably  as  a  little  flock  among  the  trees  and 
bushes  of  the  farm ;  and  from  then  on  he  is  back 
again  for  his  winter  meals  at  "  The  Lilac." 


CHICKADEE  65 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  he  was  the  first  bird  I  ever 
felt  personally  acquainted  with  ?  That  early  acquaint- 
ance, however,  was  not  brought  about  by  his  great 
abundance,  nor  by  his  very  bad,  bold  manners,  as 
might  be  with  the  English  sparrow.  I  got  acquainted 
with  him  first,  because  he  wanted  to  get  acquainted 
with  me,  he  is  such  a  cheerful,  confiding,  sociable 
little  bird !  He  drops  down  and  peeps  under  your 
hat-brim  to  see  what  manner  of  boy  you  are,  and  if 
you  are  really  fit  to  be  abroad  in  this  beautiful 
world,  so  altogether  good  both  summer  and  winter 
—  for  chickadees. 

He  is  not  quite  so  sociable  in  summer  as  in  win- 
ter, but  if  you  were  no  bigger  than  a  chickadee 
(two  and  one  half  inches  without  your  tail !)  and 
had  eight  babies  nearly  as  big  as  yourself  to  hunt 
grubs  for,  besides  a  wife  to  pet  and  feed,  do  you 
think  you  could  be  very  sociable?  In  the  winter, 
however,  he  is  always  at  liberty  to  stop  and  talk 
to  you,  a  sweet  little  way  he  has  that  makes  him  the 
easiest  bird  in  the  world  to  get  acquainted  with. 

Last  winter  while  I  was  tying  up  a  piece  of  suet 
that  had  fallen  into  the  snow,  a  hungry  and  impatient 
chickadee  lighted  on  the  brim  of  my  felt  hat.  The 
brim  bent  under  him,  and  he  came  fluttering  down 
against  my  nose,  which  I  thought  for  an  instant  he 
was  going  to  take  for  suet !  He  did  n't  snip  it  off, 
however,  as  a  certain  blackbird  did  a  certain  maid- 
en's nose,  but  lighted  instead  on  my  shoulder.  Then? 


66  WINTER 

seeing  the  lump  of  suet  in  my  hand,  he  flew  up  and 
perched  upon  my  fingers  and  held  on,  picking  at 
the  suet  all  the  time  I  was  tying  it  fast  in  the  bush. 

He  is  a  friendly  little  soul,  who  loves  your  neigh- 
borhood, as,  indeed,  most  birds  do  ;  who  has  no  fear 
of  you,  because  he  cannot  think  that  you  could  fear 
him  and  so  would  want  to  hurt  him. 

Nature  made  him  an  insect-eater ;  but  he  has  a 
mission  to  perform  besides  eating  pestiferous  insects, 
and  their  eggs  and  grubs.  This  destruction  of  in- 
sects he  does  that  the  balance  of  things  may  be 
maintained  out  of  doors,  lest  the  insects  destroy  us. 
He  has  quite  another  work  to  do,  which  is  not  a 
matter  of  grubs,  and  which  in  no  wise  is  a  matter  of 
fine  feathers  or  sweet  voice,  but  simply  a  matter  of 
sweet  nature,  vigor,  and  concentrated  cheerfulness. 

Chickadee  is  a  sermon.  I  hear  him  on  a  joyous 
May  morning  calling  Chick-a-dee!  dee!  Chick-a- 
dee!  dee!  — brisk,  bright,  and  cheery  ;  or,  soft  and 
gentle  as  a  caress,  he  whistles,  Phoe-ee-bee  !  Phoe- 
ee-bee!  I  meet  him  again  on  the  edge  of  a  bleak 
winter  night.  He  is  hungry  and  cold,  and  he  calls, 
as  I  hasten  along,  Chick-a-dee  !  dee  !  Chick-a-dee  ! 
dee  !  brisk,  bright,  and  cheery ;  or,  following  after 
me,  he  talks  to  me  with  words  as  soft  and  gentle  as 
a  caress. 

Will  you  lend  me  your  wings,  Chickadee,  your 
invisible  wings  on  which  you  ride  the  winds  of  life 
so  evenly  ? 


CHICKADEE  67 

The  abundant  summer,  the  lean  and  wolfish  win- 
ter, find  Chickadee  cheerful  and  gentle.  He  is  busier 
at  some  seasons  than  at  others,  with  fewer  chances 
for  friendship.  He  almost  disappears  in  the  early 
summer.  But  this  is  because  of  family  cares ;  and 
because  the  bigger,  louder  birds  have  come  back, 
and  the  big  leaves  have  come  out  and  hidden  him. 
A  little  searching,  and  you  will  discover  him,  in  one 
of  your  old  decayed  fence-posts,  inaybe,  or  else  deep 
in  the  swamp,  foraging  for  a  family  of  from  six  to 
eight,  that  fairly  bulge  and  boil  over  from  the  door 
of  their  home. 

Here  about  Mullein  Hill,  this  is  sure  to  be  a 
gray-birch  home.  Other  trees  will  do  —  on  a  pinch. 
I  have  found  Chickadee  nesting  in  live  white  oaks, 
maples,  upturned  roots,  and  tumbling  fence-posts. 
These  were  shifts,  only,  mere  houses,  not  real  homes. 
The  only  good  homelike  trees  are  old  gray  birches, 
dead  these  many  years  and  gone  to  punk  —  mere 
shells  of  tough  circular  bark  walls.  Halfway  down 
the  hill  is  a  small  grove  of  these  birches  that  we  call 
the  Seminary  (because,  as  a  poet  friend  says,  "  they 
look  like  seminary  girls  in  white  frocks  ").  Here  the 
chickadees  love  to  build. 

Why  has  Chickadee  this  very  decided  preference? 
Is  it  a  case  of  protective  coloration  —  the  little  gray 
and  black  bird  choosing  to  nest  in  this  little  gray  and 
black  tree  because  bird  and  tree  so  exactly  match 
one  another  in  size  and  color?  Or  is  there  a  strain 


68  WINTER 

of  poetry  in  Chickadee's  soul,  something  fine,  that 
leads  him  into  this  exquisite  harmony — into  this 
little  gray  house  for  his  little  gray  self  ? 

Explain  it  as  you  may,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  little 
bird  shows  this  marked  preference,  makes  this  delib- 
erate choice ;  and  in  the  choice  is  protection  and 
poetry,  too.  Doubtless  he  follows  the  guidance  of  a 
sure  and  watchful  instinct.  But  who  shall  deny  to 
him  a  share  of  the  higher,  finer  things  of  the  imagi- 
nation? 

His  life  is  like  his  home  —  gentle  and  sweet  and 
idyllic.  There  is  no  happier  spot  in  the  summer 
woods  than  that  about  the  birch  of  the  chickadees  ; 
and  none  whose  happiness  you  will  be  so  little  liable 
to  disturb. 

Before  the  woods  were  in  leaf  last  spring  I  found 
a  pair  of  chickadees  building  in  a  birch  along  the 
edge  of  the  swamp.  They  had  just  begun,  having 
dug  out  only  an  inch  of  the  cavity.  It  was  very  in- 
teresting to  discover  them  doing  the  excavating 
themselves,  for  usually  they  refit  some  abandoned 
chamber  or  adapt  to  their  needs  some  ready-made 
hole. 

The  birch  was  a  long,  limbless  cylinder  of  bark, 
broken  off  about  fourteen  feet  up,  and  utterly  rot- 
ten, the  mere  skin  of  a  tree  stuffed  with  dust.  I 
could  push  my  finger  into  it  at  any  point.  It  was  so 
weak  that  every  time  the  birds  lighted  upon  the  top 
the  whole  stub  wobbled  and  reeled.  Surely  they 


CHICKADEE 


69 


were  building  their  house  upon  the  sand  !  Any  crea- 
ture without  wings 
would  have  known 
that.  The  birds,  how- 
ever, because  they 
have  wings,  seem  to 
have  lost  the  sense  of 
such  insecurity,  often 
placing  their  nests  as 
if  they  expected  the 
nests  themselves  to 
take  wings  and  fly  to 
safety  when  the  rains 
descend  and  the  winds 
come. 

This  shaking  stub 
of  the  chickadees  was  standing  directly  beneath  a 
great  overshadowing  pine,  where,  if  no  partridge 
bumped  into  it,  if  two  squirrels  did  not  scamper  up 
it  together,  if  the  crows  nesting  overhead  in  the  pine 
did  not  discover  it,  if  no  strong  wind  bore  down  upon 
it  from  the  meadow  side,  it  might  totter  out  the 
nesting-season.  But  it  didn't.  The  birds  were  leav- 
ing too  much  to  luck.  I  knew  it,  and  perhaps  I 
should  have  pushed  their  card  house  down,  then 
and  there,  and  saved  the  greater  ruin  later.  Perhaps 
so,  but  who  was  I  to  interfere  in  their  labor? 

Both  birds  were  at  the  work  when  I  discovered 
them,  and  so  busily  at  it  that  my  coming  up  did  not 


70  WINTER 

delay  them  for  a  single  billful.  It  was  not  hard  dig- 
ging, but  it  was  very  slow,  for  Chickadee  is  neither 
carpenter  nor  mason.  He  has  difficulty  killing  a 
hard-backed  beetle.  So,  whenever  you  find  him  oc- 
cupying a  clean-walled  cavity,  with  a  neat,  freshly 
chipped  doorway,  you  may  be  sure  that  some  wood- 
pecker built  the  house,  and  not  this  short-billed, 
soft-tailed  little  tit.  Chickadee  lacks  both  the  bill 
chisel  and  the  tail  brace.  Perhaps  the  explanation  of 
his  fondness  for  birch  trees  lies  here  —  because  the 
birch  trees  die  young  and  soon  decay! 

The  birds  were  going  down  through  the  broken-off 
top,  and  not  by  a  hole  through  the  leathery  rind  of 
the  sides,  for  the  bark  was  too  tough  for  their  beaks. 
They  would  drop  into  the  top  of  the  stub,  pick  up 
a  wad  of  decayed  wood  and  fly  off  to  a  dead  limb 
of  the  pine.  Here,  with  a  jerk  and  a  snap  of  their 
bills,  they  would  scatter  the  punk  in  a  shower  so  thin 
and  far  that  I  could  neither  hear  it  fall  nor  find  a 
trace  of  it  upon  the  dead  leaves  of  the  ground.  This 
nest  would  never  be  betrayed  by  the  workmen's  chips, 
as  are  the  woodpeckers'  nest-holes. 

Between  the  pair  there  averaged  three  beakf  uls 
of  excavating  every  two  minutes,  one  of  the  birds 
regularly  shoveling  twice  to  the  other's  once.  They 
looked  so  exactly  alike  that  I  could  not  tell  which 
bird  was  pushing  the  enterprise ;  but  I  had  my  sus- 
picions. It  was  Mrs.  Chickadee ! 

Mr.  Chickadee  was  doing  only  part  of  his  duty, 


CHICKADEE  71 

and  only  half-heartedly  at  that!  Hers  was  the  real 
interest,  the  real  anxiety.  To  be  a  Mr.  Chickadee 
and  show  off!  That's  the  thing! 

I  sat  a  long  time  watching  the  work.  It  went  on 
in  perfect  silence,  not  a  chirp,  not  the  sound  of  a 
fluttering  wing.  The  swamp  along  whose  margin  the 
birds  were  building  had  not  a  joyous  atmosphere. 
Damp,  dim-shadowed,  and  secret,  it  seemed  to  have 
laid  its  spell  upon  the  birds.  Their  very  color  of 
gray  and  black  was  as  if  mixed  out  of  the  dusky 
colors  of  the  swamp ;  their  noiseless  coming  and  going 
was  like  the  slipping  to  and  fro  of  small  shadows. 
They  were  a  part  of  the  swamp  —  of  its  life,  of  its 
color,  of  its  silence.  They  were  children  of  the 
swamp,  sharing  its  very  spirit,  and  that  sharing  was 
their  defense,  the  best  protection  that  they  could 
have  had. 

It  didn't  save  their  nest,  however.  They  felt 
and  obeyed  the  spirit  of  the  Swamp  in  their  own 
conduct,  but  the  Swamp  did  not  tell  them  where  to 
build.  Birds  and  animals  have  wonderful  instinct, 
or  family  wisdom,  but  not  much  personal,  individual 
wisdom. 

It  was  about  three  weeks  later  when  I  stopped  again 
under  the  pine  and  found  the  birch  stub  in  pieces 
upon  the  ground.  Some  strong  wind  had  come,  or 
some  robber  had  been  after  the  eggs,  and  had 
brought  the  whole  house  tumbling  down. 

But  this  is  not  the  fate  of  all  such  birch-bark 


72  I          WINTER 

houses.  Now  and  again  they  escape;  yet  when  they 
do  it  is  always  a  matter  for  wonder. 

I  was  following  an  old  disused  wood-road  once  when 

o 

I  frightened  a  robin  from  her  nest.  Her  mate  joined 
her,  and  together  they  raised  a  great  hubbub.  Im- 
mediately a  chewink,  a  pair  of  vireos,  and  two  black 
and  white  warblers  joined  the  robins  in  their  din. 
Then  a  chickadee  appeared.  He  had  a  worm  in  his 
beak.  His  anxiety  seemed  so  real  that  I  began  to 
watch  him,  when,  looking  down  among  the  stones 
for  a  place  to  step,  what  should  I  see  but  his  mate 
emerging  from  the  end  of  a  tiny  birch  stump  at  my 
very  feet !  She  had  heard  the  racket  and  had  come 
out  to  see  what  it  was  all  about.  At  sight  of  her, 
Mr.  Chickadee  hastened  with  his  worm,  brushing  my 
face,  almost,  as  he  darted  to  her  side.  She  took  the 
worm  sweetly,  for  she  knew  he  had  intended  it  for 
her.  But  how  do  I  know  it  was  intended  for  her, 
and  not  for  the  young?  There  were  no  young  in 
the  nest;  only  eggs.  Even  after  the  young  came 
(there  were  eight  of  them!),  when  life,  from  day- 
light to  dark,  was  one  ceaseless,  hurried  hunt  for 
worms,  I  saw  him  over  and  over  again  fly  to  Mrs. 
Chickadee's  side  caressingly  and  tempt  her  to  eat. 

The  house  of  this  pair  did  not  fall.  How  could  it 
when  it  stood  precisely  two  and  a  half  feet  from  the 
ground  ?  But  that  it  was  n't  looted  is  due  to  the  amaz- 
ing boldness  of  its  situation.  It  stood  alone,  close  to 
the  road,  so  close  that  the  hub  of  a  low  wheel  in 


CHICKADEE  73 

passing  might  have  knocked  it  down.  Perhaps  a 
hundred  persons  had  brushed  it  in  going  by.  How 
many  dogs  and  cats  had  overlooked  it  no  one  can 
say  ;  nor  how  many  skunks  and  snakes  and  squirrels. 
The  accident  that  discovered  it  to  me  had  happened 
apparently  to  no  one  else,  so  here  it  stood  still  safe, 
but  only  by  the  grace  of  Luck ! 

Cutting  a  tiny  window  in  the  bark  just  above  the 
eggs,  I  looked  in  upon  the  little  children  every  day. 
I  watched  them  hatch,  grow,  and  fill  the  cavity  and 
hang  over  at  the  top.  I  was  there  the  day  they  forced 
my  window  open ;  I  was  there  the  day  when  there 
was  no  more  room  at  the  top,  and  when,  at  the  call 
of  their  parents,  one  child  after  another  of  this  large, 
sweet  bird  family  found  his  wings  and  flew  away 
through  the  friendly  woods. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A    CHAPTER    OF    THINGS   TO    DO    THIS    WINTER 

I 

YOU  should  go  skating — crawling,  I  ought  to 
say  —  over  a  pond  of  glare  ice  this  winter. 
Take  the  pond  you  are  most  familiar  with. 
Go  early  on  a  bright  day,  before  any  skater  arrives, 
and  lying  flat  upon  the  clear,  "  black  "  ice,  study  the 
bottom  of  the  pond  and  the  fish  that  swim  below 
you.  They  have  boats  with  glass  bottoms  along  the 
California  coast,  through  which  to  watch  the  mar- 
velous bottoms  off  shore.  But  an  Eastern  pond 
covered  with  glare  ice  is  as  good,  for  such  ice  is  a 
plate-glass  window  into  a  wonder  world. 

II 

Fight  your  way  one  of  these  winter  days  to 
the  crest  of  some  high  hill  and  stand  up  against  a 
northwest  gale.  Feel  the  sweep  of  the  winds  from 
across  the  plain  beneath  you;  hear  them  speaking 
close  in  your  ear,  as  they  fly  past ;  catch  them  and 
breathe  them,  until  they  run  red  in  your  leaping 
veins.  Master  them,  and  make  them,  mighty  as  they 
are,  your  own.  And  something  large  and  free,  strong 
and  sound  will  pass  into  you ;  and  you  will  love  the 


THINGS  TO   DO  THIS  WINTER  75 

great  world  more,  and  you  will  feel  how  fit  a  place, 
for  the  strong  of  heart,  is  this  earth  to  live  on. 

Ill 

Keep  a  careful  list  of  the  winter  birds  you  see ; 
and  visit  every  variety  of  wood,  meadow,  and  upland 
in  your  neighborhood  —  not  neglecting  the  parks 
and  city  trees  —  for  a  sight  of  the  rarer  winter  vis- 
itors, such  as  the  snowy  owl,  the  snow  buntings, 
and  the  crossbills. 

IV 

If  you  know  little  about  the  birds,  then  this  is  the 
time  to  begin  your  study.  When  they  are  so  few  and 
scarce  ?  Yes,  just  because  they  are  few  and  scarce. 
On  a  June  morning  (unless  you  are  at  home  in  the 
woods)  you  will  be  confused  by  the  medley  of  songs 
you  hear,  and  the  shapes  flitting  everywhere  about 
you;  and  you  may  be  tempted  to  give  up  your 
study  for  the  very  multitude.  Get  a  pair  of  good 
field  or  opera  glasses  and  a  good  bird  book,  such  as 
Hoffmann's  "  Guide  to  the  Birds,"  and  go  into  the 
fields  and  woods  —  leaving  the  book  at  home.  The 
first  bird  you  see  follow  up  until  you  can  remember 

(1)  his  size,  color  —  whether  he  has  a  white  bar  on 
wings,  or  small  spots  or  large  clear  spots  on  breast; 

(2)  his  chirp,  or  call;  (3)  something  peculiar  about 
his  flight  —  a  flirt  of  the  tail,  a  habit  of  flying  down 
to  the  ground  in  getting  away.  Then  come  back  to 


76  WINTER 

your  book  and  identify  him  from  memory.  If  you 
cannot,  then  go  out  again  and  again  ;  and  it  will  not 
be  long  before  either  this  first  one,  or  others,  will  be 
accurately  made  out  —  the  beginning  of  an  acquaint- 
ance that  you  can  extend  in  the  summer,  but  which 
will  be  plenty  large  enough  for  your  "  coming-out" 
winter  into  bird  society.  For  here  is  a  list  of  the  birds 
you  may  be  able  to  find  during  the  winter:  — 

Screech  owl,  crow,  robin,  flicker,  jay,  goldfinch, 
tree  sparrow,  English  sparrow,  song  sparrow,  junco, 
golden-crowned  kinglet,  nuthatch,  brown  creeper, 
downy  woodpecker,  quail,  partridge. 


See  to  it  that  no  bird  in  your  neighborhood  starves 

for  lack  of  food  that 
you  can  supply.  Tie 
a  piece  of  suet  to  a 
tree   or    bush    near 
the    house   (by   the 
window  if  you  can) 
for   the   chickadees   and    blue 
jays;  keep  a  place  on  the  lawn 
cleared  of  snow  and  well  supplied 
with  crumbs  and  small  seeds  for 
the  juncos  and  the  sparrows;  hang  a 
netted  bag  of  cracked  nuts  out  some- 
where for  the  nuthatches;  and  provide  corn 
and  nuts  for  the  squirrels. 


THINGS  TO  DO  THIS   WINTER 


77 


VI 

Go  out  on  a  cold  December  day,  or  a  January 
day,  and  see 
how  many 
"  signs  "  of 
spring  — 
"  Minor  Pro- 
phets," as  Mr. 
Torrey  calls  them  - 
you  can  bring  home. 
They  will  be  mostly 
buds  of  various 
sorts.  Then,  on  a 
warm,  soft  day,  go 
again  to  see  what 
you  can  bring  home 
—  flitting,  creeping,  crawling  things  that  the  warm 
sun  has  brought  from  their  winter  hiding. 

VII 

Make  a  map  of  your  sky,  showing  the  positions 
of  the  planets,  the  constellations,  and  the  most 
brilliant  stars,  the  points  in  the  horizon  for  the  rising 
and  setting  of  the  sun,  say,  in  January,  noting  the 
changes  in  places  of  things  since  your  last  map  drawn 
in  October.  Any  school  child  can  do  it,  and,  in 
doing  it,  learn  the  few  large  facts  about  the  sky 
that  most  people  are  pitifully  ignorant  of. 


78 


WINTER 


VIII 

Go  out  after  a  fresh  light  snow  and  take  up  the 
trail  of  a  fox  or  a  rabbit  or  a  partridge,  as  you 

might  take  up 
a  problem  in 
arithmetic,  or 
as  a  detective 
might  take  up 
a  clew,  and 
"  solve"  it  — 
where  the 
creature  came 
from,  where 
going,  what 
for,  in  a  hurry 

or  not,  pursued  or  pursuing,  etc.  It 
will  give  you  one  of  the  best  of  lessons 
in  observation,  in  following  a  clew,  and  in  learning 
to  take  a  hint. 

IX 

Go  out  to  study  the  face  of  the  ground — the 
ridges,  hollows,  level  places,  the  ledges,  meadows, 
sandbanks,  the  course  of  the  streams,  the  location 
of  the  springs — the  general  shape  and  contour,  the 
pitch  and  slant  and  make-up  of  the  region  over 
which  you  tramp  in  the  summer.  Now,  when  the 
leaves  are  off  and  things  swept  bare,  you  can  get  a 
general  idea  of  the  lay  of  the  land  that  will  greatly 


THINGS   TO   DO   THIS   WINTER  79 

aid  you  in  your  more  detailed  study  of  plants  and 
birds,  of  individual  things,  in  the  summer.  It  is  like 
an  outline  map  in  your  geography. 

X 

"Winter  is  the  time  to  do  much  good  reading.  A 
tramp  over  real  fields  is  to  be  preferred  to  a  tramp 
in  a  book.  But  a  good  book  is  pretty  nearly  as  good 
as  anything  under  the  stars.  You  need  both  fields 
and  books.  And  during  these  cold  days  —  impossible 
days,  some  of  them,  for  work  afield  —  you  will  read, 
read.  Oh,  the  good  things  to  read  that  have  been 
written  about  the  out-of-doors ! 


CHAPTER    VIII 

THE  MISSING  TOOTH 

THE  snow  had  melted  from  the  river  meadows, 
leaving  them  flattened,  faded,  and  stained 
with  mud — a  dull,  dreary  waste  in  the  gray 
February.  I  had  stopped  beside  a  tiny  bundle  of 
bones  that  lay  in  the  matted  grass  a  dozen  feet  from 
a  ditch.  Here,  still  showing,  was  the  narrow  path 
along  which  the  bones  had  dragged  themselves; 
there  the  hole  by  which  they  had  left  the  burrow 
in  the  bank  of  the  ditch.  They  had  crawled  out  in 
this  old  runway,  then  turned  off  a  little  into  the 
heavy  autumn  grass  and  laid  them  down.  The  rains 
had  come  and  the  winter  snows.  The  spring  was 
breaking  now  and  the  small  bundle,  gently  loosened 
and  uncovered,  was  whitening  on  the  wide,  bare 
meadow. 


THE   MISSING  TOOTH  81 

Shall  I  stop  beside  this  small  bundle  of  whitening 
bones  or  shall  I  turn  my  head  away  and  pass  on? 
Shall  I  allow  you  to  stop  with  me  in  our  winter 
ramble  and  let  you  see  the  tragedy  here  in  the  flat- 
tened meadow  grass,  or  shall  I  hide  from  your  eyes 
the  dark,  the  bitter,  the  tragic  in  the  lives  of  the 
wild  things  out  of  doors? 

I  think  it  is  best  to  hide  nothing  from  you.  Real 
love  for  nature  is  largely  sympathy  with  nature; 
and  there  can  be  no  sympathy  without  intimate  and 
full  understanding  of  the  struggle  and  suffering  in 
the  lives  out  of  doors.  There  is  a  dark  story  in  this 
little  bundle  of  bones.  Do  you  wish  to  hear  it?  There 
is  a  fierce,  cruel  threat  in  the  growl  of  the  winter 
wind.  Do  you  wish  to  hear  that?  There  is  menace 
and  death  in  the  shrill  scream  of  the  hawk.  Do  you 
wish  to  hear  that?  Or  do  you  wish  to  hear  only  the 
song  of  the  robin?  only  the  whisper  of  the  summer 
breeze?  only  the  story  of  the  life  and  love  and  joy 
of  things? 

No,  there  are  two  sides  to  life — two  sides  to  your 
life,  the  bright  and  dark  sides ;  two  sides  to  the  lives 
of  all  men,  and  to  the  lives  of  all  things.  Summer 
is  the  bright  side  of  Nature's  life ;  winter  is  the  dark 
side.  Summer  and  winter  are  both  needed  to  round 
out  the  life  of  the  year;  so  tears  and  laughter  seem 
to  be  needed  in  our  lives;  joy  and  sorrow,  peace  and 
suffering,  rest  and  hardship — these,  or  something 
like  them,  seem  to  be  needed  in  the  lesser  lives  of 


82  WINTER 

birds  and  beasts  to  round  out  their  experience  and 
make  them  keen  and  strong. 

Happily,  the  pain  and  suffering  in  nature  are 
largely  hidden  from  us.  Wild  things  when  stricken 
"  turn  their  faces  to  the  wall/'  retreat,  slink  silently 
away  out  of  sight  to  be  alone.  They  do  not  wish  us 
to  know.  But  we  do  know,  and  we  need  to  know,  if 
we  would  enter  into  their  lives  as  a  sharer  in  them ; 
and  if  we  would  enter  into  and  understand  the 
larger,  wider,  deeper  life  of  which  they,  and  we,  and 
all  things,  are  a  part. 

You  must  pause  with  me  above  this  little  bundle 
of  bones  until  I  tell  you  their  story. 

I  had  recognized  the  bones  at  once  as  the  skele- 
ton of  a  muskrat.  But  it  was  something  peculiar 
in  the  way  they  lay  that  had  caused  me  to  pause. 
They  seemed  outstretched,  as  if  composed  by  gentle 
hands,  the  hands  of  sleep.  They  had  not  been  flung 
down.  The  delicate  ribs  had  fallen  in,  but  not  a  bone 
was  broken  nor  displaced,  not  one  showed  the  splin- 
ter of  shot,  or  the  crack  that  might  have  been  made 
by  a  steel  trap.  No  violence  had  been  done  them. 
They  had  been  touched  by  nothing  rougher  than 
the  snow.  Out  into  the  hidden  runway  they  had 
crept.  Death  had  passed  by  them  here  ;  but  no  one 
else  in  all  the  winter  months. 

The  creature  had  died  —  a  "  natural  "  death.  It 
had  starved,  while  a  hundred  acres  of  plenty  lay 


THE   MISSING   TOOTH  83 

round  about.  Picking  up  the  skull,  I  found  the  jaws 
locked  together  as  if  they  were  a  single  solid  bone. 
One  of  the  two  incisor  teeth  of  the  upper  jaw  was 
missing,  and  apparently  had  never  developed.  The 
opposite  tooth  on  the  lower  jaw,  thus  unopposed 
and  so  unworn,  had  grown  beyond  its  normal  height 
up  into  the  empty  socket  above,  then  on,  turning 
outward  and  piercing  the  cheek-bone  in  front  of  the 
eye,  whence,  curving  like  a  boar's  tusk,  it  had 
slowly  closed  the  jaws  and  locked  them,  rigid,  set, 
as  fixed  as  jaws  of  stone. 

At  first  the  animal  had  been  able  to  gnaw ;  but 
as  the  tooth  curved  through  the  bones  of  the  face 
and  gradually  tightened  the  jaws,  the  creature  got 
less  and  less  to  eat,  until,  one  day,  creeping  out  of 
the  burrow  for  food,  the  poor  thing  was  unable  to 
get  back. 

We  seldom  come  upon  the  like  of  this.  It  is  com- 
moner than  we  think  ;  but,  as  I  have  said,  it  is 
usually  hidden  away  and  quickly  over.  How  often 
do  we  see  a  wild  thing  sick  —  a  bird  or  animal  suf- 
fering from  an  accident,  or  dying,  like  this  muskrat, 
because  of  some  physical  defect  ?  The  struggle  be- 
tween animals  —  the  falling  of  the  weak  as  prey  to 
the  strong  —  is  ever  before  us ;  but  this  single- 
handed  fight  between  the  creature  and  Nature  is  a 
far  rarer,  silenter  tragedy.  Nature  is  too  swift  to 
allow  us  time  for  sympathy. 

At  best  there  is   only  a  fighting  chance  in  the 


84  WINTER 

meadow.  Only  strength  and  craft  may  win;  only 
those  who  have  all  of  their  teeth.  The  muskrat 
with  a  single  missing  tooth  never  enters  the  real  race 
of  life  at  all.  He  slinks  from  some  abandoned  bur- 
row, and,  if  the  owl  and  mink  are  not  watching,  he 
dies  alone  in  the  grass,  and  we  rarely  know. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  impression  made  upon  me 
by  those  quiet  bones.  It  was  like  that  made  by  my 
first  visit  to  a  great  city  hospital  —  out  of  the  busy, 
cheerful  street  into  a  surgical  ward,  where  the 
sick  and  injured  lay  in  long  white  lines.  We  tramp 
the  woods  and  meadows  and  never  step  from  the 
sweet  air  and  the  pure  sunlight  of  health  into  a  hos- 
pital. But  that  is  not  because  no  sick,  ill-formed,  or 
injured  are  there.  The  proportion  is  smaller  than 
among  us  humans,  and  for  very  good  reasons,  yet 
there  is  much  real  suffering,  and  to  come  upon  it, 
as  we  will,  now  and  then,  must  certainly  quicken 
our  understanding  and  deepen  our  sympathy  with 
the  life  out  of  doors. 

No  sensible  person  could  for  a  moment  believe 
the  animals  capable  of  suffering  as  a  human  being 
can  suffer;  nor  that  there  is  any  such  call  for  our 
sympathy  from  them  as  from  our  human  neighbors. 
But  an  unselfish  sharing  of  the  life  of  the  fields 
demands  that  we  take  part  in  all  of  it. 

Nature  wears  a  brave  face.  Her  smile  is  ever  in 
the  open,  her  laughter  quick  and  contagious.  This 
brave  front  is  no  mask.  It  is  real.  Sunlight,  song, 


THE   MISSING   TOOTH 


85 


color,  form,  and  fragrance  are  real.  And  so  is  our 
love  and  joy  in  Nature  real.  Real,  also,  should  be 
our  sympathy  and  sorrow  with  Nature. 

Here,  for  instance,  are  my  crows  :  do  I  share  fully 
in  the  life  of  Nature  so  long  as  I  think  of  the  crow 
only  with  admiration  for  his  cunning  or  with  wrath 
at  his  destruction  of  my  melons  and  corn  ? 

A  crow  has  his  solemn  moments.  He  knows  fear, 
pain,  hunger,  accident,  and  disease ;  he  knows  some- 
thing very  like  affection  and  love.  For  all  that,  he 
is  a  mere  crow.  But  a  mere  crow  is  no  mean  thing. 
He  is  my  brother,  and  a  real  love  will  give  me  part 
in  all  his  existence.  I  will  forage  and  fight  with  him ; 


when  the  keen 
frozen     pines, 

voles.   I  know 


I  will  parley  and  play ;  and 
north  winds  find  him  in  the 
I  will  suffer  with  him,  too. 

Here  again  are  my  meadow 
that  my  hay  crop  is  shorter 
every  year  for  them,  —  a  very 
little  shorter.  And  I  can  look 
with  satisfaction  at  a  cat  carry- 
ing a  big  bob-tailed  vole  out 
of   my    "mowing,"    for    the 
voles,  along  with  other  mice, 
are  injurious  to  man. 

But  one  day  I  came  upon  two  of  my  voles 
struggling  for  life  in  the  water,  exhausted  and  well- 
nigh  dead.  I  helped  them  out,  as  I  should  have 
helped  out  any  other  creature,  and  having  saved 


86  WINTER 

them,  why,  what  could  I  do  but  let  them  go  —  even 
into  my  own  meadow  ?  This  has  happened  several 
times. 

When  the  drought  dries  the  meadow,  the  voles 
come  to  the  deep,  plank-walled  spring  at  the  upper 
end,  to  drink.  The  water  usually  trickles  over  the 
curb,  but  in  a  long  dry  spell  it  shrinks  to  a  foot  or 
more  below  the  edge,  and  the  voles,  once  within  for 
their  drink,  cannot  get  out.  Time  and  again  I  had 
fished  them  up,  until  I  thought  to  leave  a  board 
slanting  down  to  the  water,  so  that  they  could  climb 
back  to  the  top. 

It  is  wholesome  to  be  the  good  Samaritan  to  a 
meadow  mouse,  to  pour  out,  even  waste,  a  little  of 
the  oil  and  wine  of  sympathy  on  the  humblest  of  our 
needy  neighbors. 

Here  are  the  chimney  swallows,  too.  One  can  look 
with  complacency,  with  gratitude,  indeed,  upon  the 
swallows  of  other  chimneys,  as  they  hawk  in  the 
sky ;  yet,  when  the  little  creatures,  so  useful,  but  so 
uncombed  and  unfumigated,  set  up  their  establish- 
ments in  your  chimney,  to  the  jeopardy  of  the  whole 
house,  then  you  need  an  experience  like  mine. 

I  had  had  a  like  experience  years  before,  when 
the  house  did  not  belong  to  me.  This  time,  how- 
ever, the  house  was  mine,  and  if  it  became  infested 
with  vermin  because  of  the  swallows,  I  could  not 
move  away  ;  so  I  felt  like  burning  them  in  the  chim- 
ney, bag  and  baggage.  There  were  four  nests,  as 


THE  MISSING  TOOTH  87 

nearly  as  I  could  make  out,  and,  from  the  fre- 
quent squeakings,  I  knew  they  were  all  filled  with 
young.  Then  one  day,  when  the  young  were  nearly 
ready  to  fly,  there  came  a  rain  that  ran  wet  far 
down  the  sooty  chimney,  loosened  the  mortar  of  the 
nests,  and  sent  them  crashing  into  the  fireplace. 

Some  of  the  young  birds  were  killed  outright; 
the  others  were  at  my  mercy,  flung  upon  me, — 
helpless,  wailing  infants  !  Of  course  I  made  it  com- 
fortable for  them  on  the  back-log,  and  let  their 
mothers  flutter  down  unhindered  to  feed  them.  Had 
I  understood  the  trick,  I  would  have  hawked  for 
them  and  helped  feed  them  myself ! 

They  made  a  great  thunder  in  the  chimney ;  they 
rattled  down  into  the  living-room  a  little  soot ;  but 
nothing  further  came  of  it.  We  were  not  quaran- 
tined. On  the  contrary,  we  had  our  reward,  accord- 
ing to  promise ;  for  it  was  an  extremely  interesting 
event  to  us  all.  It  dispelled  some  silly  qualms,  it 
gave  us  intimate  part  in  a  strange  small  life,  so 
foreign,  yet  so  closely  linked  to  our  own;  and  it 
made  us  pause  with  wonder  that  even  our  empty, 
sooty  chimney  could  be  made  use  of  by  Nature  to 
our  great  benefit. 

I  wonder  if  the  nests  of  the  chimney  swallows 
came  tumbling  down  when  the  birds  used  to  build  in 
caves  and  hollow  trees  ?  It  is  a  most  extraordinary 
change,  this  change  from  the  trees  to  the  chimneys, 
and  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  accompanied  by 


88  WINTER 

an  increase  of  architectural  wisdom  necessary  to 
meet  all  the  conditions  of  the  new  hollow.  The  mor- 
tar or  glue,  which,  I  imagine,  held  firmly  in  the 
empty  trees,  will  not  mix  with  the  chimney  soot,  so 
that  the  nest,  especially  when  crowded  with  young, 
is  easily  loosened  by  the  rain,  and  sometimes  even 
broken  away  by  the  slight  wing  stroke  of  a  descend- 
ing swallow,  or  by  the  added  weight  of  a  parent  bird 
as  it  settles  with  food. 

We  little  realize  how  frequent  fear  is  among  the 
birds  and  animals,  and  how  often  it  proves  fatal. 
A  situation  that  would  have  caused  no  trouble 
ordinarily,  becomes  through  sudden  fright  a  tangle 
or  a  trap.  I  have  known  many  a  quail  to  bolt  into 
a  fast  express  train  and  fall  dead.  Last  winter  I  left 
the  large  door  of  the  barn  open,  so  that  my  flock  of 
juncos  could  feed  inside  upon  the  floor.  They  found 
their  way  into  the  hayloft  and  went  up  and  down 
freely.  On  two  or  three  occasions  I  happened  in  so 
suddenly  that  they  were  thoroughly  frightened  and 
flew  madly  into  the  cupola  to  escape  through  the 
windows.  They  beat  against  the  glass  until  utterly 
dazed,  and  would  have  perished  there,  had  I  not 
climbed  up  later  and  brought  them  down.  So  thou- 
sands of  the  migrating  birds  perish  yearly  by  flying 
wildly  against  the  dazzling  lanterns  of  the  light- 
houses, and  thousands  more  either  lose  their  course 
in  the  thick  darkness  of  the  stormy  nights,  or  else 
are  blown  out  of  it,  and  drift  far  away  to  sea. 


THE   MISSING   TOOTH  89 

Hasty,  careless,  miscalculated  movements  are  not 
as  frequent  among  the  careful  wild  folk  as  among 
us,  perhaps ;  but  there  is  abundant  evidence  of  their 
occasional  occurrence  and  of  their  sometimes  fatal 
results. 

Several  instances  are  recorded  of  birds  that  have 
been  tangled  in  the  threads  of  their  nests ;  and  one 
instance  of  a  bluebird  that  was  caught  in  the  flying 
meshes  of  an  oriole's  nest  into  which  it  had  been 
spying. 

I  once  found  the  mummied  body  of  a  chippy 
twisting  and  swinging  in  the  leafless  branches  of  a 
peach  tree.  The  little  creature  was  suspended  in 
a  web  of  horsehair  about  two  inches  below  a  nest. 
It  looked  as  if  she  had  brought  a  snarled  bunch  of 
the  hair  and  left  it  loose  in  the  twigs.  Later  on, 
a  careless  step  and  her  foot  was  fast,  when  every 
frantic  effort  for  freedom  only  tangled  her  the 
worse.  In  the  nest  above  were  four  other  tiny  mum- 
mies —  a  double  tragedy  that  might  with  care  have 
been  averted. 

A  similar  fate  befell  a  song  sparrow  that  I  dis- 
covered hanging  dead  upon  a  barbed-wire  fence.  By 
some  chance  it  had  slipped  a  foot  through  an  open 
place  between  the  two  twisted  strands,  and  then, 
fluttering  along,  had  wedged  the  leg  and  broken  it 
in  the  struggle  to  escape. 

We  have  all  held  our  breath  at  the  hazardous 
traveling  of  the  squirrels  in  the  treetops.  What 


90  WINTER 

other  animals  take  such  risks? — leaping  at  dizzy 
heights  from  bending  limbs  to  catch  the  tips  of 
limbs  still  smaller,  saving  themselves  again  and 
again  by  the  merest  chance. 

But  luck  sometimes  fails.  My  brother,  a  careful 
watcher  in  the  woods,  on  one  occasion  when  he  was 
hunting,  saw  a  gray  squirrel  miss  its  footing  in  a  tree 
and  fall,  breaking  its  neck  upon  a  log  beneath. 

I  have  frequently  known  squirrels  to  fall  short  dis- 
tances, and  once  I  saw  a  red  squirrel  come  to  grief 
like  this  gray  squirrel.  He  was  scurrying  through 

the  tops  of  some  lofty  pitch 
pines,  a   little   hurried   and 
flustered      at 
sight  of   me, 
and,  neariug 
the  end  of  a  high  branch,  was  in  the  act 

O  ' 

sgz  of  springing,  when  the  dead  tip  cracked 
under  him  and  he  came  tumbling  head- 
long. The  height  must  have  been  forty 
feet,  so  that  before  he  reached  the  ground  he  had 
righted  himself,  —  his  tail  out  and  legs  spread,  — 
but  the  fall  was  too  great.  He  hit  the  earth  heav- 
ily, and  before  I  could  reach  him  he  lay  dead  upon 
the  needles,  with  blood  oozing  from  his  eyes  and 
nostrils. 

Unhoused  and  often  unsheltered,  the  wild  things 
suffer  as  we  hardly  yet  understand.  No  one  can  esti- 
mate how  many  of  our  wild  creatures  die  in  a  year 


THE   MISSING   TOOTH  91 

from  severe  cold,  heavy  storms,  high  winds  and 
tides.  I  have  known  the  nests  of  a  whole  colony  of 
gulls  and  terns  to  be  swept  away  in  a  great  storm ; 
while  the  tides,  over  and  over,  have  flooded  the  inlet 
marshes  and  drowned  out  the  nests  in  the  grass  — 
those  of  the  clapper  rails  by  thousands. 

I  remember  a  late  spring  storm  that  came  with 
the  returning  redstarts  and,  in  my  neighborhood, 
killed  many  of  them.  Toward  evening  of  that  day 
one  of  the  little  black-and-orange  voyageurs  fluttered 
against  the  window  and  we  let  him  in,  wet,  chilled, 
and  so  exhausted  that  for  a  moment  he  lay  on  his 
back  in  my  open  palm.  Soon  after  there  was  another 
soft  tapping  at  the  window,  —  and  two  little  redstarts 
were  sharing  our  cheer  and  drying  their  butterfly 
wings  in  our  warmth.  Both  of  these  birds  would 
have  perished  had  we  not  harbored  them  for  the 
night. 

The  birds  and  animals  are  not  as  weather-wise  as 
we  ;  they  cannot  foretell  as  far  ahead  nor  provide  as 
certainly  against  need,  despite  the  popular  notion  to 
the  contrary. 

We  point  to  the  migrating  birds,  to  the  muskrat 
houses,  to  the  hoards  of  the  squirrels,  and  say, 
"  How  wise  and  far-sighted  these  Nature-taught  chil- 
dren are  !  "  True,  they  are,  but  only  for  conditions 
that  are  normal.  Their  wisdom  does  not  cover  the 
unusual.  The  gray  squirrels  did  not  provide  for  the 
unusually  hard  weather  of  last  winter.  Three  of  them 


92  WINTER 

from  the  woodlot  came  begging  of  me,  and  lived  on 
my  wisdom,  not  their  own. 

Consider  the  ravens,  that  neither  sow  nor  reap, 
that  have  neither  storehouse  nor  barn,  yet  they  are 
fed  —  but  not  always.  Indeed,  there  are  few  of  our 
winter  birds  that  go  hungry  so  often  as  do  the 
cousins  of  the  ravens,  the  crows,  and  that  die  in  so 
great  numbers  for  lack  of  food  and  shelter. 

After  severe  and  protracted  cold,  with  a  snow- 
covered  ground,  a  crow-roost  looks  like  a  battlefield, 
so  thick  lie  the  dead  and  wounded.  Morning  after 
morning  the  flock  goes  over  to  forage  in  the  frozen 
fields,  and  night  after  night  returns  hungrier,  weaker, 
and  less  able  to  resist  the  cold.  Now,  as  the  dark- 
ness falls,  a  bitter  wind  breaks  loose  and  sweeps 
down  upon  the  pines. 

"  List'ning  the  doors  an'  winnocks  rattle, 
I  thought  me  on  the  ourie  cattle,"  — 

and  how  often  I  have  thought  me  of  the  crows  biding 
the  night  yonder  in  the  moaning  pines  !  So  often,  as 
a  boy,  and  with  so  real  an  awe,  have  I  watched  them 
returning  at  night,  that  the  crows  will  never  cease 
flying  through  my  wintry  sky,  —  an  endless  line  of 
wavering  black  figures,  weary,  retreating  figures, 
beating  over  in  the  early  dusk. 

And  to-night  another  wild  storm  sweeps  across  the 
winter  fields.  All  the  afternoon  the  crows  have  been 
going  over,  and  are  still  passing  as  the  darkness  set- 
tles at  five  o'clock.  Now  it  is  nearly  eight,  and  the 


THE   MISSING  TOOTH 


93 


long  night  is  but  just  begun.  The  storm  is  increas- 
ing. The  wind  shrieks  about  the  house,  whirling  the 
fine  snow  in  hissing  eddies  past  the  corners  and 
driving  it  on  into  long,  curling  crests  across  the 
fields.  I  can  hear  the  roar  as  the  wind  strikes  the 
shoal  of  pines  where  the  fields  roll  into  the  woods 
—a  vast  surf  sound,  but  softer  and  higher,  with  a 
wail  like  the  wail  of  some  vast  heart  in  pain. 

I  can  see  the  tall  trees  rock  and  sway  with  their 
burden  of  dark  forms.  As  close  together  as  they  can 
crowd  on  the  bending  limbs  cling  the  crows,  their 
breasts  turned  all  to  the  storm.  With  crops  empty 
and  bodies  weak,  they  rise  and  fall  in  the  cutting, 
ice-filled  wind  for  thirteen  hours  of  night. 

Is  it  a  wonder  that  the  life  fires  burn  low?  that 
sometimes  the  small  flames  flicker  and  go  out  ? 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    PECULIAR    'POSSUM 

IF  you  are  a  New  Englander,  or  a  Northwest- 
erner,  then,  probably,  you  have  never  pulled  a 
'possum  out  of  his  hollow  stump  or  from  under 
some  old  rail-pile,  as  I  have  done,  many  a  time,  down 
in    southern  New   Jersey.    And  so,  probably,  you 
have   never   made   the   acquaintance   of   the  most 
peculiar  creature  in  our  American  woods. 

Even  roast  'possum  is  peculiar.  Up  to  the  time 
you  taste  roast  'possum  you  quite  agree  with  Charles 
Lamb  that  roast  pig  is  peculiarly  the  most  delicious 
delicacy  "in  the  whole  modus  edibilis"  in  other 
words,  bill  of  fare.  But  once  you  eat  roast  'possum, 
you  will  go  all  over  Lamb's  tasty  "  Dissertation  upon 
Roast  Pig/'  marking  out  "pig"  with  your  pencil 
and  writing  in  "  'possum,"  making  the  essay  read 
thus  :  — 

"  There  is  no  flavor  comparable,  I  will  contend, 
to  that  of  the  crisp,  tawny,  well-watched,  not  over- 
roasted, 'possum,  as  it  is  called,  —  the  very  teeth 
are  invited  to  their  share  of  the  pleasure  at  this  ban- 
quet in  overcoming  the  coy,  brittle  resistance,  — 
with  the  adhesive  oleaginous  —  0  call  it  not  fat ! 
but  an  indefinable  sweetness  growing  up  to  it  —  the 


THE   PECULIAR    'POSSUM  95 

tender  blossoming  of  fat  —  fat  cropped  in  the  bud 
—  taken  in  the   shoot  —  in  the  first  innocence  - 
For  no  matter  how  old  your  roast  'possum,  he  is  as 
tender  as  the  tenderest  roast  pig.     And  that,  of 
course,  is  peculiar. 

But  live  'possum  is  more  peculiar  than  roast  'pos- 
sum. It  is  peculiar,  for  instance,  that  almost  all  of 
the  'possum's  relations,  except  his  immediate  family, 
dwell  apart  in  Australia,  —  in  Australasia,  for  mar- 
supials are  found  also  in  Tasmania,  New  Guinea, 
and  the  Moluccas  —  which  islands  the  marsupials 
seem  to  have  had  given  them  for  their  own  when 
the  world  was  made.  There,  at  least,  most  of  them 
live  and  have  lived  for  ages,  except  the  'pos- 
sums. These  latter,  strangely  enough,  live  in  South 
and  North  America,  and  nowhere  else.  The  peculiar, 
puzzling  thing  about  them  is :  how  they,  and  they 
only  of  the  marsupials,  got  away  from  Australia 
across  the  sea  to  America.  Did  a  family  of  them  get 
set  adrift  on  a  log  and  float  across  ?  Or  was  there 
once,  as  geologists  tell  us,  a  long  string  of  islands 
close  together,  stretching  from  the  tip  of  South 
America,  from  the  "Horn,"  off  across  the  sea  to 
Australia,  over  which  the  'possums  might  once  have 
made  their  way  ?  But  if  they  came  by  such  a  route, 
why  did  not  the  kangaroos  come  too  ?  Ah,  the  kan- 
garoo is  not  a  'possum.  There  is  no  other  creature 
in  the  woods  that  would  dare  play  "  Follow  the 
leader  "  with  the  'possum.  No,  I  am  half  inclined  to 


96  WINTER 

think  the  scientists  right  who  say  that  the  'possum 
is  the  great-great-grandfather  of  all  the  marsupials, 
and  that  the  migration  might  have  been  the  other 
way  about  —  from  America,  across  the  sea. 

But  what  is  the  use  of  speculating?  Here  is  the 
'possum  in  our  woods  ;  that  we  know  ;  and  yonder 
in  Australasia  are  his  thirteen  sets  of  cousins,  and 
there  they  seem  always  to  have  been,  for  of  these 
thirteen  sets  of  cousins,  four  sets  have  so  long  since 
ceased  to  live  that  they  are  now  among  the  fossils, 
slowly  turning,  every  one  of  them,  to  stone ! 

A  queer  history  he  has,  surely  !  But  queerer  than 
his  history,  is  his  body,  and  the  way  he  grows  from 
babyhood  to  twenty-pound  'possumhood. 

For  besides  having  a  tail  that  can  be  used  for  a 
hand,  and  a  paw  with  a  thumb  like  the  human  thumb, 
the  female  'possum  has  a  pocket  or  pouch  on  her 
abdomen,  just  as  the  kangaroo  has,  in  which  she 
carries  her  young. 

Now  that  is  peculiar,  so  very  peculiar  when  you 
study  deeply  into  it,  that  the  'possum  becomes  to 
the  scientist  quite  the  most  interesting  mammal  in 
North  America. 

Returning  from  a  Christmas  vacation  one  year, 
while  a  student  in  college,  I  brought  back  with  me 
twenty-six  live  'possums  so  that  the  professor  of 
zoology  could  study  the  peculiar  anatomy  of  the 
'possum  for  several  of  its  many  meanings. 

This  pouch,  for  instance,  and  the  peculiar  bones 


THE   PECULIAR   'POSSUM 


97 


of  the  'possum,  show  that  it  is  a  very  primitive 
mammal,  one  of  the  very  oldest  mammals,  so  close 
to  the  beginning  of  the  mammalian  line  that  there 
are  only  two  other  living  "  animals  "  (we  can  hardly 


call  them  mammals)  older  and  more  primitive — the 
porcupine  ant-eater,  and,  oldest  of  all,  the  duck-bill, 
not  "  older  "  at  all  perhaps,  but  only  more  primitive. 
For  the  duck-bill,  though  classed  as  a  mammal, 
not  only  has  the  bill  of  the  duck,  but  also  lays  eggs 
like  the  birds.  The  porcupine  ant-eater  likewise 
lays  eggs,  and  so  seems  almost  as  much  bird  or  rep- 
tile as  mammal.  And  as  the  birds  and  reptiles  lived 
upon  the  earth  before  the  age  of  mammals,  and  are 
a  lower  and  more  primitive  order  of  creatures,  so 
the  duck-bill,  the  porcupine  ant-eater,  and  the  'pos- 
sum, because  in  their  anatomy  they  are  like  the  birds 


98 


WINTER 


and  the  reptiles  in  some  respects,  are  perhaps  the 
lowest  and  the  oldest  of  all  the  mammals. 

The  'possum,  therefore,  is  one  of  the  most  primi- 
tive of  mammals,  and  dates  as  far  back  as  the  reptilian 
r\          age,  when  only  traces  of  mammalian 
life  are  to  be  found,  the  'possum's 
fossil  ancestors 
being  among  the 
notable    of    these 
early  remains. 
The     mammals 


have  just  said, 
were  only  partly  mammal,  for  they  were  partly  bird 
or  reptile,  as  the  duck-bill  and  ant-eater  still  are. 
Now  the  'possum  does  not  lay  eggs  as  these  other 
two  do,  for  its  young  are  born,  not  hatched  ;  yet  so 
tiny  and  undeveloped  are  they  when  born,  that  they 
must  be  put  into  their  mother's  pouch  and  nursed, 
as  eggs  are  put  into  a  nest  and  brooded  until  they 
are  hatched  —  really  born  a  second  time. 

For  here  in  their  mother's  pouch  they  are  like 
chicks  in  the  shell,  and  quite  as  helpless.  It  is  five 
weeks  before  they  can  stick  their  heads  out  and  take 
a  look  at  the  world. 

No  other  mammalian  baby  is  so  much  of  a  baby 
and  yet  comes  so  near  to  being  no  baby  at  all.  It  is 
less  than  an  inch  long  when  put  into  the  pouch,  and 
it  weighs  only  four  grains  !  Four  grains  ?  Think  how 


THE   PECULIAR    'POSSUM 


99 


small  that  is.  For  there  are  7000  grains  to  a  pound, 
which  means  that  it  would  take  1750  baby  'possums 
to  weigh  as  much  as  two  cups  of  sugar ! 

"I  should  say  he  was  peculiar  !"  I  hear  you  ex- 
claim ;  and  you  will  agree  with  an  ancient  History  of 
Carolina  which  I  have,  when  it  declares :  "  The 
Opoffom  is  the  wonder  of  all  the  land  animals." 

I  wish  you  had  been  with  me  one  spring  day  as  I  was 
stretching  a  "lay-out"  line  across  Cubby  Hollow.  (A 
lay-out  line  is  a  long  fish-line,  strung  with  baited 
hooks,  and  reaching  across  the  pond  from  shore  to 
shore.)  I  was  out  in  the  middle  of  the  pond,  lying  flat 
on  a  raft  made  of  three  cedar  rails,  when  my  dog 
began  to  bark  at  something  in  a  brier-patch  on  shore. 

Paddling  in  as  fast  as  I  could,  I  found  the  dog 
standing  before  a  large  'possum,  which  was  backed  up 
against  a  tree. 
I  finally  got 
Mrs.  'Possum 
by  the  tail  and 
dropped  her 
unhurt  into 
my  eel-pot  — 
a  fish -trap 
made  out  of  an  empty  nail-keg  —  which  I  had  left 
since  fall  among  the  bushes  of  the  hillside.  Then 
paddling  again  to  the  middle  of  the  pond,  I  untangled 
and  set  my  hooks  on  the  lay-out  line,  and  came  back 
to  shore  for  my  'possum. 


100 


WINTER 


I  didn't  quite  fancy  pushing  my  hand  down 
through  the  burlap  cover  over  the  end  of  the  keg ; 
so  I  turned  it  upside  down  to  spill  the  'possum  out, 


-  and  out  she  spilled  and  nine  little  'possums  with 
her ! 

I  had  put  in  one  and  spilled  out  —  ten  !  And  this 
proves  again  that  the  'possum  is  peculiar.  Nine  of 
these  were  babies  that  had  been  hidden  from  me  and 
the  dog  in  their  mother's  pouch. 

Peculiar,  too,  was  the  history  of  one  of  these 
nine  young  'possums  (the  one  we  named  "Pinky"). 
For  after  Pinky 's  mother  choked  to  death  on  a 
fish-bone,  I  gave  all  his  brothers  and  sisters  away, 
and  devoted  myself  to  training  Pinky  up  in  the 
way  he  should  go.  And  strangely  enough,  when 


THE   PECULIAR 

he  was  grown,  unlike  any  other  wild  animal  I  had 
ever  tamed,  he  would  not  depart  from  these  domes- 
ticated ways,  but  insisted  upon  coming  back  home 
every  time  I  took  him  away  to  the  woods.  Of 
course  he  was  only  a  few  months  old  when  I  tried 
to  turn  him  loose  in  the  woods,  and  that  may  account 
for  his  returning  and  squeezing  through  the  open- 
ing of  the  pump-box  trough  into  the  kitchen  and 
going  fast  asleep  on  the  cushion  of  the  settee  ;  as  it 
may  also  account  for  his  getting  into  a  neighbor's 
yard  by  mistake  on  his  way  back  one  night  and 
drowning  in  the  well. 

You  have  read  of  'possum  hunts ;  —  and  they  are 
peculiar,  too,  as  naturally  they  must  needs  be.  For 
you  hunt  'possums  with  rabbit  hounds,  and  shoot 
them  with  a  meal-sack  —  shoot  them  into  a  meal- 
sack  would  be  more  exact.  And  you  hunt  by  moon- 
light if  you  really  love  'possum. 

We  used  to  start  out  just  as  the  moon,  climbing  over 
the  woods,  fell  soft  across  the  bare  fields.  The  old 
dog  would  be  some  distance  ahead,  her  nose  to  the 
ground,  sometimes  picking  up  a  trail  in  the  first  corn- 
field, or  again  not  until  we  reached  the  woods,  or 
again  leading  us  for  miles  along  the  creek  meadows 
among  the  scattered  persimmon  trees,  before  strik- 
ing a  fresh  scent. 

Wherever  the  trail  started  it  usually  led  away  for 
the  woods,  for  some  hollow  stump  or  tree,  where  the 
'possum  made  his  nest.  Once  in  a  while  I  have  over- 


102 


WINTER 


taken  the  fat  fellow  in  an  open  field  or  atop  a  fence, 
or  have  even  caught  him  in  a  hencoop;  but  usually, if 
hunting  at  night,  it  has  been  a  long,  and  not  always 
an  easy,  chase,  for  a  'possum,  in  spite  of  his  fat 
and  his  fossil  ancestors,  is  not  stupid.  Or  else  he 
is  so  slow-witted  that  there  is  no  telling,  by  man 
or  dog,  which  way  he  will  go,  or  what  he  may  do 
next. 

A  rabbit,  or  a  deer,  or  a  coon,  when  you  are  on 
their  trail,  will  do  certain  things.  You  can  count 
upon  them  with  great  certainty.  But  a  'possum  never 
seems  to  do  any  thing  twice  alike;  he  has  no  traveled 
paths,  no  regular  tricks,  no  set  habits.  He  knows 
the  road  home,  but  it  is  always  a  different  road  —  a 
meandering,  roundabout,  zigzag,  criss-cross,  up-and- 
down  (up-the-trees-and-down)  road,  we-won't-get- 
home-till-morning  road,  that  takes  in  all  the  way 
stations,  from  the  tops  of  tall  persimmon  trees  to 
the  bottoms  of  all  the  deep,  dark  holes  that  need 
looking  into,  along  the  route. 

Peculiar  !  —  So,  at  least,  a  dog  with  an  orderly 
mind  and  well-regulated  habits  thinks,  anyhow. 
For  a  'possum  trail  will  give  a  good  rabbit  dog  the 
blues ;  he  has  n't  the  patience  for  it.  Only  a  slow 
rheumatic  old  hound  will  stick  to  a  'possum  trail 
with  the  endurance  necessary  to  carry  it  to  its  end 
—  in  a  hollow  log,  or  a  hollow  stump,  or  under  a 
shock  of  corn  or  a  rail-pile.  Once  the  trail  actually 
led  me,  after  much  trouble,  into  a  hen-house  and 


THE   PECULIAR   'POSSUM  103 

into  a  stove  in  the  hen-house,  where,  upon  the  grate, 
I  found  three  'possums  in  their  nest ! 

It  is  a  peculiar  sport,  this  'possum-hunting ;  yet  it 
is  mildly  exciting ;  and  when  you  get  your  'possum 
by  the  tail,  he  smiles  at  you  —  grins,  I  ought  to  say 
—  and  has  a  fit.  To  go  hunting  for  a  creature  that 
smiles  at  you  in  a  dreadful  manner  when  you  cap- 
ture him,  that  flops  down  in  a  dead  faint  or  has 
a  fit  when  you  take  him  up  by  the  tail,  that  shows 
the  spunk  and  fight  of  a  boiled  cabbage  —  to  go 
hunting  for  such  a  beast  must  be  exciting,  as  excit- 
ing as  going  to  the  store  for  a  quart  of  beans. 

But  here  are  the  winter  woods  at  night,  and  the 
wide,  moonlit  fields,  covered,  it  may  be,  with  the 
glistening  snow.  The  full,  round  moon  rides  high 
overhead,  the  pointed  corn-shocks  stand  silent  over 
the  fields,  the  woods  rise  dark  and  shadowy  beyond. 
Only  the  slow,  musical  cry  of  the  hound  echoes 
through  the  stirless  air,  which  seems  to  sparkle  like 
the  snow,  as  if  filled  with  gleaming  frost-dust  that 
only  the  moonlight  can  catch  and  set  to  glancing 
silvery-bright. 

You  don't  care  whether  you  catch  a  'possum  or 
not;  you  are  abroad  in  a  world  so  large  and  silent, 
so  crystal-clear  and  shining,  so  crisp,  so  open,  so 
acreep  with  shadows,  so  deep  and  mysterious  in  its 
distances,  so  pure  and  beautiful  and  unblemished, 
that  just  to  be  abroad  is  wonder  enough,  and  you 
are  not  sorry  to  come  back  under  the  brilliant  mid- 


104  WINTER 

night  sky  with  the  old  dog  at  your  heels  and  over 
your  shoulder  an  empty  bag. 

But  if  your  bag  is  heavy  with  fat  'possum  then 
that,  too,  is  good.  You  have  peered  into  his  black 
hole ;  you  have  reached  in  and  pulled  him  out  — 
nothing  more.  No  roar  of  a  gun  has  shattered  your 
world  of  crystal ;  you  have  killed  nothing,  wounded 
nothing  —  no,  not  even  the  silence  and  the  serenity 
of  your  soul.  You  and  the  clear,  calm  night  are  still 
one. 

You  have  dropped  a  smiling  'possum  into  an  easy, 
roomy  bag.  He  feels  warm  against  your  back.  The 
old  dog  follows  proud  and  content  at  your  heels. 
And  you  feel  —  as  the  wide,  softly  shining  sky  seems 
to  feel. 

And  that,  too,  is  peculiar. 


CHAPTER  X 

A    FEBRUARY    FRESHET 

ONE  of  the  very  interesting  events  in  my  out- 
of-door  year  is  the  February  freshet.  Per- 
haps you  call  it  the  February  thaw.  That 
is  all    it  could  be  called  this  year ;  and,  in  fact, 
a  thaw  is  all  that  it  ever  is  for  me,  nowadays,  living, 
as  I  do,  high  and  dry  here,  on  Mullein  Hill,  above 
a  sputtering  little  trout  brook  that  could  not  have  a 
freshet  if  it  tried. 

But  Maurice  River  could  have  a  freshet  without 
trying.  Let  the  high  south  winds,  the  high  tides,  and 
the  warm  spring  rains  come  on  together,  let  them 
drive  in  hard  for  a  day  and  a  night,  as  I  have 
known  them  to  do,  and  the  deep,  dark  river  goes 
mad !  The  tossing  tide  sweeps  over  the  wharves, 
swirls  about  the  piles  of  the  great  bridge,  leaps 
foaming  into  the  air,  and  up  and  down  its  long  high 
banks  beats  with  all  its  wild  might  to  break  through 
into  the  fertile  meadows  below. 

There  are  wider  rivers,  and  other,  more  exciting 
things,  than  spring  freshets ;  but  there  were  not 
when  I  was  a  boy.  Why,  Maurice  River  was  so  wide 
that  there  was  but  a  single  boy  in  the  town,  as  I 
remember,  who  could  stand  at  one  end  of  the  draw- 


106 


WINTER 


bridge  and  skim  an  oyster-shell  over  to  the  opposite 
end !  The  best  that  I  could  do  was  to  throw  my 
voice  across  and  hear  it  echo  from  the  long,  hollow 
barn  on  the  other  bank.  It  would  seem  to  me  to  strike 
the  barn  in  the  middle,  leap  from  end  to  end  like  a 
creature  caged,  and  then  bound  back  to  me  faint  and 
frightened  from  across  the  dark  tide. 

I  feared  the  river.  Oh,  but  I  loved  it,  too.  Its 
tides  were  always  rising  or  falling  —  going  down  to 
the  Delaware  Bay  and  on  to  the  sea.  And  in  from 
the  bay,  or  out  to  the  bay,  with  white  sails  set,  the 
big  boats  were  always  moving.  And  when  they  had 
gone,  out  over  the  wide  water  the  gulls  or  the  fish 


hawks  would  sail,  or  a  great  blue  heron,  with  wings 
like  the  fans  of  an  old  Dutch  mill,  would  beat  pon- 
derously across. 

I  loved  the  river.  I  loved  the  sound  of  the  calk- 
ing-maul  and  the  adze  in  the  shipyard,  and  the 
smell  of  the  chips  and  tarred  oakum ;  the  chatter  of 


A   FEBRUARY  FRESHET  107 

the  wrens  among  the  reeds  and  calamus  ;  the  pink 
of  the  mallow  and  wild  roses  along  the  high  mud 
banks ;  the  fishy  ditches  with  their  deep  sluiceways 
through  the  bank  into  the  river ;  and  the  vast,  vast 
tide-marshes  that,  to  this  day,  seem  to  me  to  stretch 
away  to  the  very  edge  of  the  world. 

What  a  world  for  a  boy  to  drive  cows  into  every 
morning,  and  drive  them  home  from  every  night, 
as  I  used  to  help  do  !  or  to  trap  muskrats  in  during 
the  winter;  to  go  fishing  in  during  the  summer;  to 
go  splashing  up  and  down  in  when  the  great  Febru- 
ary freshet  came  on  ! 

For  of  all  the  events  of  the  year,  none  had  such 
fascination  for  me  as  the  high  winds  and  warm 
downpour  that  flooded  the  wharves,  that  drove  the 
men  of  the  village  out  to  guard  the  river-banks, 
and  that  drowned  out  of  their  burrows  and  winter 
hiding-places  all  the  wild  things  that  lived  within 
reach  of  the  spreading  tide. 

The  water  would  pour  over  the  meadows  and  run 
far  back  into  the  swamps  and  farm  lands,  setting 
everything  afloat  that  could  float  —  rails,  logs, 
branches;  upon  which,  as  chance  offered,  some 
struggling  creature  would  crawl,  and  drift  away  to 
safety. 

But  not  always  to  safety;  for  over  the  meadows 
the  crows  and  fish  hawks,  gulls,  herons,  bitterns, 
and  at  night  the  owls,  were  constantly  beating  to 
pounce  upon  the  helpless  voyagers,  even  taking  the 


108  WINTER 

muskrats  an  easy  prey,  through  their  weakness  from 
exposure  and  long  swimming  in  the  water. 

There  would  be  only  two  shores  to  this  wild 
meadow-sea  —  the  river-bank,  a  mere  line  of  earth 
drawn  through  the  water,  and  the  distant  shore  of 
the  upland.  If  the  wind  blew  from  the  upland  toward 
the  bank,  then  the  drift  would  all  set  that  way,  and 
before  long  a  multitude  of  shipwrecked  creatures 
would  be  tossed  upon  this  narrow  breakwater,  that 
stood,  a  bare  three  feet  of  clay,  against  the  wilder 
river-sea  beyond. 

To  walk  up  and  down  the  bank  then  was  like 
entering  a  natural  history  museum  where  all  the 
specimens  were  alive ;  or  like  going  to  a  small  me- 
nagerie. Sparrows,  finches,  robins,  mice,  moles,  voles, 
shrews,  snakes,  turtles,  squirrels,  muskrats,  with  even 
a  mink  and  an  opossum  now  and  then,  would  scurry 
from  beneath  your  feet  or  dive  back  into  the  water 
as  you  passed  along. 

And  by  what  strange  craft  they  sometimes  came ! 
I  once  saw  two  muskrats  and  a  gray  squirrel  floating 
along  on  the  top  of  one  of  the  muskrats'  houses. 
And  again  a  little  bob-tailed  meadow  mouse  came 
rocking  along  in  a  drifting  catbird's  nest  which  the 
waves  had  washed  from  its  anchorage  in  the  rose- 
bushes. And  out  on  the  top  of  some  tall  stake, 
or  up  among  the  limbs  of  a  tree  you  would  see 
little  huddled  bunches  of  fur,  a  muskrat  perhaps 
that  had  never  climbed  before  in  his  life,  waiting, 


A   FEBRUARY   FRKSIIKT 


109 


like  a  sailor   lashed   to  the   rigging,  to  be    taken 
off. 

I  Jut  it  was  not  the  multitude  of  wild  things  — 
birds,  beasts,  insects  —  that  fascinated  me  most,  that 
led  me  out  along  the  slippery,  dangerous  bank 
through  the  swirling  storm ;  it  was  rather  the  fear 
and  confusion  of  the  animals,  the  wild  giant-spirit 


x 


raging  over  the  face  of  the  earth  and  sky,  daunting 
and  terrifying  them,  that  drew  me. 

Many  of  the  small  creatures  had  been  wakened 
by  the  flood  out  of  their  deep  Avinter  sleep,  and, 
dazed  and  numbed  and  frightened,  they  seemed  to 
know  nothing,  to  care  for  nothing  but  the  touch  of 
the  solid  earth  to  their  feet. 

All  of  their  natural  desires  and  instincts,  their 
hatreds,  hungers,  terrors,  were  sunk  beneath  the 
waters.  They  had  lost  their  wits,  like  human  crea- 
tures in  a  panic,  and,  struggling,  fighting  for  a  foot- 
hold, they  did  not  notice  me  unless  I  made  at  them, 
and  then  only  took  to  the  water  a  moment  to  escape 
the  instant  peril. 


110  WINTER 

The  sight  was  strange,  as  if  this  were  another 
planet  and  not  our  orderly,  peaceful  world  at  all. 
Nor,  indeed,  was  it ;  for  fear  cowered  everywhere,  in 
all  the  things  that  were  of  the  earth,  as  over  the 
earth  and  everything  upon  it  raged  the  fury  of  river 
and  sky. 

The  frail  mud  bank  trembled  under  the  beating 
of  the  waves ;  the  sunken  sluices  strangled  and  shook 
deep  down  through  the  whirlpools  sucking  at  their 
mouths ;  the  flocks  of  scattered  sea-birds  —  ducks 
and  brant  —  veered  into  sight,  dashed  down  toward 
the  white  waters  or  drove  over  with  mad  speed, 
while  the  winds  screamed  and  the  sky  hung  black 
like  a  torn  and  flapping  sail. 

And  I,  too,  would  have  to  drop  upon  all  fours, 
with  the  mice  and  muskrats,  and  cling  to  the  bank 
for  my  life,  as  the  snarling  river,  leaping  at  me, 
would  plunge  clear  over  into  the  meadow  below. 

A  winter  blizzard  is  more  deadly,  but  not  more 
fearful,  nor  so  wild  and  tumultuous.  For  in  such  a 
storm  as  this  the  foundations  of  the  deep  seem  to  be 
broken  up,  the  frame  of  the  world  shaken,  and  you, 
and  the  mice,  and  the  muskrats,  share  alike  the  wild, 
fierce  spirit  and  the  fear. 

To  be  out  in  such  a  storm,  out  where  you  can  feel 
its  full  fury,  as  upon  a  strip  of  bank  in  the  midst 
of  the  churning  waters,  is  good  for  one.  To  experi- 
ence a  common  peril  with  your  fellow  mortals,  though 
they  be  only  mice  and  muskrats,  is  good  for  one; 


A   FEBRUARY   FRESHET  111 

for  it  is  to  share  by  so  much  in  their  humble  lives, 
and  by  so  much  to  live  outside  of  one's  own  little 
self.  ' 

And  then  again,  we  are  so  accustomed  to  the 
order  and  fair  weather  of  our  part  of  the  globe,  that 
we  get  to  feel  as  if  the  universe  were  being  partic- 
ularly managed  for  us ;  nay,  that  we,  personally,  are 
managing  the  universe.  To  flatten  out  on  a  quaking 
ridge  of  earth  or  be  blown  into  the  river ;  to  hear  no 
voice  but  the  roar  of  the  storm,  and  to  have  no  part 
or  power  in  the  mighty  tumult  of  such  a  storm,  makes 
one  feel  about  the  size  of  a  mouse,  makes  one  feel 
how  vast  is  the  universe,  and  how  fearful  the  vortex 
of  its  warring  forces  ! 

The  shriek  of  those  winds  is  still  in  my  ears, 
the  sting  of  the  driving  rains  still  on  my  face,  the 
motion  of  that  frail  mud  bank,  swimming  like  a  long 
sea-serpent  in  the  swirling  waters,  I  can  still  feel  to 
my  finger-tips.  And  the  growl  of  the  river,  the 
streaming  shreds  of  the  sky,  the  confusion  beneath 
and  about  me,  the  mice  and  muskrats  clinging  with 
me  for  a  foothold  —  I  live  it  all  again  at  the  first 
spatter  of  a  February  rain  upon  my  face. 

To  be  out  in  a  February  freshet,  out  in  a  big 
spring  break-up,  is  to  get  a  breaking  up  one's  self,  a 
preparation,  like  Nature's,  for  a  new  lease  of  life  — 
for  spring. 


CHAPTER   XI 

A    BREACH    IN    THE    BANK 

THE  February  freshet  had  come.  We  had  been 
expecting1  it,  but  no  one  along  Maurice  River 
had  ever  seen  so  wild  and  warm  and  ominous 
a  spring  storm  as  this.  So  sudden  and  complete  a 
break-up  of  winter  no  one  could  remember;  nor 
so  high  a  tide,  so  rain-thick  and  driving  a  south 
wind.  It  had  begun  the  night  before,  and  now, 
along  near  noon,  the  river  and  meadows  were  a 
tumult  of  white  waters,  with  the  gale  so  strong  that 
one  could  hardly  hold  his  own  on  the  drawbridge 
that  groaned  from  pier  to  pier  in  the  grip  of  the 
maddened  storm. 

It  was  into  the  teeth  of  this  gale  that  a  small  boy 
dressed  in  large  yellow  "oil-skins"  made  his  slow 
way  out  along  the  narrow  bank  of  the  river  toward 
the  sluices  that  controlled  the  tides  of  the  great 
meadows. 

The  boy  was  in  the  large  yellow  oil-skins ;  not 
dressed,  no,  for  he  was  simply  inside  of  them,  his 
feet  and  hands  and  the  top  of  his  head  having 
managed  to  work  their  way  out.  It  seems,  at  least, 
that  his  head  was  partly  out,  for  on  the  top  of  the 
oil-skins  sat  a  large  black  sou'wester.  And  in  the 


A   BREACH   IN  THE   BANK  113 

arms  of  the  oil-skins  lay  an  old  army  musket,  so  big 
and  long  that  it  seemed  to  be  walking  away  with 
the  oil-skins,  as  the  oil-skins  seemed  to  be  walking 
away  with  the  boy. 

I  can  feel  the  kick  of  that  old  musket  yet,  and 
the  prick  of  the  dried  sand-burs  among  which  she 
knocked  me.  I  can  hear  the  rough  rasping  of  the 
charing  legs  of  those  oil-skins  too,  though  I  was 
not  the  boy  this  time  inside  of  them.  But  I  knew 
the  boy  who  was,  a  real  boy ;  and  I  know  that  he 
made  his  careful  way  along  the  trembling  river-bank 
out  into  the  sunken  meadows,  meadows  that  later 
on  I  saw  the  river  burst  into  and  claim — and  it 
still  claims  them,  as  I  saw  only  last  summer,  when 
after  thirty  years  of  absence  I  once  more  stood  at 
the  end  of  that  bank  looking  over  a  watery  waste 
which  was  once  the  richest  of  farm  lands. 

Never,  it  seemed,  had  the  village  known  such 
wind  and  rain  and  such  a  tide.  It  was  a  strange, 
wild  scene  from  the  drawbridge  —  wharves  obliter- 
ated, river  white  with  flying  spume  and  tossing  ice- 
cakes,  the  great  bridge  swaying  and  shrieking  in 
the  wind,  and  over  everything  the  blur  of  the 
swirling  rain. 

The  little  figure  in  yellow  oil-skins  was  not  the 
only  one  that  had  gone  along  the  bank  since  morn- 
ing, for  a  party  of  men  had  carefully  inspected 
every  foot  of  the  bank  to  the  last  sluice,  for  fear 
that  there  might  be  a  weak  spot  somewhere.  Let  a 


114 


WINTER 


breach  occur  with  such  a  tide  as  this  and  it  could 
never  be  stopped. 

And  now,  somewhat  past  noon,  the  men  were 
again  upon  the  bank.  As  they  neared  Five-Forks 
sluice,  the  central  and  largest  of  the  water-gates, 
they  heard  a  smothered  boom  above  the  scream  of 
the  wind  in  their  ears.  They  were  startled  ;  but  it 
was  only  the  sound  of  a  gun  somewhere  off  in  the 
meadow.  It  was  the  gun  of  the  boy  in  the  oil-skins. 

Late  that  afternoon  Doctor  "  Sam,"  driving  home 
along  the  flooded  road  of  the  low  back  swamp, 


caught  sight,  as  he  came  out  in  view  of  the  river,  of 
a  little  figure  in  yellow  oil-skins  away  out  on  the 
meadow. 

The  doctor  stopped  his  horse  and  hallooed.  .But 


A   BREACH   IN   THE   BANK  115 

the  boy  did  not  hear.  The  rain  on  his  coat,  the 
wind  and  the  river  in  his  ears  drowned  every  other 
sound. 

The  dusk  was  falling,  and  as  the  doctor  looked 
out  over  the  wild  scene,  he  put  his  hands  to  his 
mouth  arid  called  again.  The  yellow  figure  had  been 
blotted  out  by  the  rain.  There  was  no  response,  and 
the  doctor  drove  on. 

Meanwhile  the  boy  in  the  yellow  oil-skins  was 
splashing  slowly  back  along  the  narrow,  slippery  clay 
bank.  He  was  wet,  but  he  was  warm,  and  he  loved 
the  roar  of  the  wind  and  the  beat  of  the  driving 
rain. 

As  the  mist  and  rain  were  fast  mixing  with 
the  dusk  of  the  twilight,  he  quickened  his  steps. 
His  path  in  places  was  hardly  a  foot  wide,  covered 
with  rose  and  elder  bushes  mostly,  but  bare  in  spots 
where  holes  and  low  worn  stretches  had  been  re- 
cently built  up  with  cubes  of  the  tough  blue  mud 
of  the  flats. 

The  tide  was  already  even  with  the  top  of  the 
bank  and  was  still  rising.  It  leaped  and  hit  at  his 
feet  as  he  picked  his  way  along.  The  cakes  of  white 
ice  crunched  and  heeled  up  against  the  bank  with 
here  and  there  one  flung  fairly  across  his  path.  The 
tossing  water  frequently  splashed  across.  Twice  he 
jumped  places  where  the  tide  was  running  over  down 
into  the  meadows  below. 

How  quickly  the  night  had  come !  It  was  dark 


116  WINTER 

when  he  reached  Five-Forks  sluice — the  middle  point 
in  the  long,  high  bank.  While  still  some  distance 
off  he  heard  the  sullen  roar  of  the  big  sluice,  through 
which  the  swollen  river  was  trying  to  force  its  way. 

He  paused  to  listen  a  moment.  He  knew  the  pe- 
culiar voice  of  every  one  of  these  gateways,  as  he 
knew  every  foot  of  the  river-bank. 

There  was  nothing  wrong  with  the  sullen  roar. 
But  how  deep  and  threatening  !  He  could  feel  the 
sound  even  better  than  he  could  hear  it,  far  down 
below  him.  He  started  forward,  to  pass  on,  when  he 
half  felt,  through  the  long,  regular  throbbing  of 
the  sluice,  a  shorter,  faster,  closer  quiver,  as  of  a  small 
running  stream  in  the  bank  very  near  his  feet. 

Dropping  quickly  to  his  knees,  he  laid  his  ear  to 
the  wet  earth.  A  cold,  black  hand  seemed  to  seize 
upon  him.  He  heard  the  purr  of  running  water  ! 

It  must  be  down  about  three  feet.  He  could  dis- 
tinctly feel  it  tearing  through. 

Without  rising  he  scrambled  down  the  meadow 
side  of  the  bank  to  see  the  size  of  the  breach.  He 
could  hear  nothing  of  it  for  the  boiling  at  the  gates 
of  the  sluice.  It  was  so  dark  he  could  scarcely  see. 
But  near  the  bottom  the  mud  suddenly  caved  beneath 
his  feet,  and  a  rush  of  cold  water  caught  at  his 
knees. 

The  hole  was  greater  than  he  feared. 

Crawling  back  to  the  top  of  the  bank,  he  leaned 
out  over  the  river  side.  A  large  cake  of  ice  hung  in 


A   BREACH   IN   THE   BANK  117 

water  in  front  of  him.  He  pushed  it  aside  and,  bend- 
ing until  his  face  barely  cleared  the  surface  of  the 
river,  he  discovered  a  small  sucking"  eddy,  whose 
swirling  hole  he  knew  ran  into  the  breach. 

He  edged  farther  out  and  reached  down  under  the 
water  and  touched  the  upper  rim  of  the  hole.  How 
large  might  it  be  ?  Swinging  round,  he  dug  his  fin- 
gers into  the  bank  and  lowered  himself  feet  first 
until  he  stood  in  the  hole.  It  was  the  size  of  a  small 
bucket,  but  he  could  almost  feel  it  going  beneath  his 
feet,  and  a  sudden  terror  took  hold  upon  him. 

He  was  only  a  boy,  and  the  dark  night,  the  wild 
river,  the  vast,  sweeping  storm,  the  roar  and  tremor 
and  tumult  flattened  him  for  a  moment  to  the  ridge 
of  the  bank  in  a  panic  of  fear! 

But  he  heard  the  water  running,  he  felt  the  bank 
going  directly  beneath  where  he  lay,  and  getting  to 
his  feet  he  started  for  the  village.  A  single  hasty 
step  and,  but  for  the  piles  of  the  sluice,  he  would  have 
plunged  into  the  river. 

He  must  feel  his  way;  but  he  never  could  do  it  in 
time  to  save  the  bank.  The  breach  must  be  stopped 
at  once.  He  must  stop  it  and  keep  it  stopped  until 
the  next  patrol  brought  help. 

Feeling  his  way  back,  he  dropped  again  upon  his 
hands  and  knees  above  the  breach  to  think  for  a 
moment.  The  cake  of  ice  hung  as  before  in  the  eddy. 
Catching  it,  he  tipped  it  and  thrust  it  down  across 
the  mouth  of  the  hole,  but  it  slipped  from  his  cold 


118  WINTER 

fingers  and  dived  away.  He  pushed  down  the  butt 
of  his  musket,  turned  it  flat,  but  it  was  not  broad 
enough  to  cover  the  opening.  Then  he  lowered  him- 
self again,  and  stood  in  it,  wedging  the  musket  in 
between  his  boots;  but  he  could  feel  the  water  still 
tearing  through  at  the  sides,  and  eating  all  the 
faster. 

He  clambered  back  to  the  top  of  the  bank,  put  his 
hand  to  his  mouth  and  shouted.  The  only  answer 
was  the  scream  of  the  wind  and  the  cry  of  a  brant 
passing  overhead. 

Then  the  boy  laughed.  "Easy  enough,"  he  mut- 
tered, and,  picking  up  the  musket,  he  leaned  once 
more  out  over  the  river  and  thrust  the  steel  barrel 
of  the  gun  hard  into  the  mud  just  below  the  hole. 
Then,  stepping  easily  down,  he  sat  squarely  into  the 
breach,  the  gun  like  a  stake  in  front  of  him  sticking 
up  between  his  knees. 

Then  he  laughed  again,  as  he  caught  his  breath, 
for  he  had  squeezed  into  the  hole  like  a  stopper  into 
a  bottle,  his  big  oil-skins  filling  the  breach  com- 
pletely. 

The  water  stood  above  the  middle  of  his  breast, 
and  the  tide  was  still  rising.  Darkness  had  now  set- 
tled, but  the  ghostly  ice-cakes,  tipping,  slipping  to- 
ward him,  were  spectral  white.  He  had  to  shove 
them  back  as  now  and  then  one  rose  before  his  face. 
The  sky  was  black,  and  the  deep  water  below  him 
was  blacker.  And  how  cold  it  was ! 


A   BREACH   IN   THE   BANK  119 

Doctor  Sam  had  been  stopped  by  the  flooded 
roads  on  his  way  home,  and  lights  shone  in  the  win- 
dows as  he  entered  the  village.  He  turned  a  little 
out  of  his  way  and  halted  in  front  of  a  small  cottage 
near  the  bridge. 

"  Is  Joe  here  ?  "  he  asked. 

"No,"  answered  the  mother;  "  he  went  down  the 
meadow  for  muskrats  and  has  not  returned  yet.  He 's 
probably  over  with  the  men  at  the  store." 

Doctor  Sam  drove  on  to  the  store. 

There  was  no  boy  in  yellow  oil-skins  in  the  store. 

Doctor  Sam  picked  up  a  lighted  lantern. 

"  Come  on/'  he  said;  "  I  'm  wet,  but  I  want  a  look 
at  those  sluices,"  and  started  for  the  river,  followed 
immediately  by  the  men,  whom  he  led  in  single  file 
out  along  the  bank. 

Swinging  his  lantern  low,  he  pushed  into  the  teeth 
of  the  gale  at  a  pace  that  left  the  line  of  lights  strag- 
gling far  behind. 

"  What  a  night !  "  he  growled.  "  If  I  had  a  boy 
of  my  own  —  "  and  he  threw  the  light  as  far  as  he 
could  over  the  seething  river  and  then  down  over  the 
flooded  meadow. 

Ahead  he  heard  the  roar  of  Five-Forks  sluice,  and 
swung  his  lantern  high,  as  if  to  signal  it,  so  like  the 
rush  of  a  coming  train  was  the  sound  of  the  waters. 

But  the  little  engineer  in  yellow  oil-skins  could 
not  see  the  signal.  He  had  almost  ceased  to  watch. 
With  his  arm  cramped  about  his  gun,  he  was  still 


120  WINTER 

at  his  post ;  but  the  ice-cakes  floated  in  and  touched 
him  ;  the  water  no  longer  felt  cold. 

On  this  side,  then  on  that,  out  over  the  swollen 
river,  down  into  the  tossing  meadow  flared  the  lan- 
tern as  the  doctor  worked  his  way  along. 

Above  the  great  sluice  be  paused  a  moment,  then 
bent  his  head  to  the  wind  and  started  on,  when  his 
foot  touched  something  soft  that  yielded  strangely, 
sending  a  shiver  over  him,  and  his  light  fell  upon  a 
bunch  of  four  dead  muskrats  lying  in  the  path. 

Along  the  meadow  side  flashed  the  lantern,  up  and 
over  the  riverside,  and  Doctor  Sam,  reaching  quickly 
down,  drew  a  limp  little  form  in  yellow  oil-skins  out 
of  the  water,  as  the  men  behind  him  came  up. 

A  gurgle,  a  hiss,  a  small  whirlpool  sucking  at  the 
surface,  —  and  the  tide  was  again  tearing  through 
the  breach  that  the  boy  had  filled. 

The  men  sprang  quickly  to  their  task,  and  did  it 
well,  while  Doctor  Sam,  shielding  the  limp  little  form 
from  the  wind,  forced  a  vial  of  something  between 
the  white  lips,  saying  over  to  himself  as  he  watched 
the  closed  eyes  open,  "  If  I  had  a  boy  of  my  own  — 
If  I  had  a  boy—" 

No,  Doctor  Sam  never  had  a  boy  of  his  own  ;  but 
he  always  felt,  I  think,  that  the  boy  of  those  yellow 
oil-skins  was  somehow  pretty  nearly  his. 

After  a  long,  cold  winter  how  I  love  the  spatter  on 


DREW  A  LIMP  LITTLE  FORM  OUT  OF  THE  WATER 


122  WINTER 

my  face  of  the  first  February  rain !  The  little  trout 
brook  below  me  foams  and  sometimes  overruns  the 
road,  and  as  its  small  noise  ascends  the  hill,  I  can 
hear  —  the  wind  on  a  great  river,  the  wash  of  waves 
against  a  narrow  bank,  and  the  muffled  roar  of  quak- 
ing sluices  as  when  a  February  freshet  is  on. 


CHAPTER  XTI 

A    CHAPTER    OF    THINGS    TO    HEAR    THIS    WINTER 

I 

YOU  should  hear  the  three  great  silences  of 
winter  :  the  wide,  sudden  silence  that  falls 
at  twilight  on  the  coming  of  the  first  winter 
frost ;  the  smothered  hush  that  waits  the  breaking 
of  a  winter  storm ;  the  crystal  stillness,  the  speech 
of  the  stars,  that  pervades  earth  and  sky  on  a  bril- 
liant, stirless  winter  night.  You  should  hear  —  or  is 
it  feel?  —  them  all. 

II 

So  should  you  hear  the  great  voices  of  the  winter : 
the  voice  of  the  north  wind ;  the  voice  of  a  pine 
forest;  the  voice  of  the  surf  on  a  stormy  shore. 
There  is  no  music  that  I  know  like  the  wild  mighty 
music  of  the  winter  winds  in  the  winter  woods.  It 
will  often  happen  that  you  can  pass  through  a  bare 
stretch  of  naked  hardwoods  immediately  into  a  grove 
of  thick-limbed  spruces  or  pines.  Never  miss  such 
an  opportunity.  Do  not  let  the  high  winds  of  this 
winter  blow  on  and  away  without  your  hearing  them 
—  at  least  once  —  as  they  sweep  through  the  hard- 
woods on  into  the  deep  resounding  pines. 


124  WINTER 

III 

Didyou  ever  hear  the  running,  rumbling,  reverber- 
ating sound  of  the  shore-to-shore  split  of  a  wide 
sheet  of  new  ice  ?  You  will  hear  it  as  the  sun  rises  over 
the  pond,  as  the  tide  turns  in  the  ice-bound  river, 
and  when  the  ice  contracts  with  falling  temperature, 
—  a  startling  bolt  of  sound,  a  quake,  that  cleaves 
the  ice  across  and  splits  its  way  into  the  heart  of 
the  frozen  hills. 

IV 

One  of  the  most  unnatural  of  all  the  sounds  out- 
of-doors  is  the  clashing,  glassy  rattle  of  trees  ice- 
coated  and  shaken  by  the  wind.  It  is  as  if  you  were 
in  some  weird  china  shop,  where  the  curtains,  the 
very  clothes  of  the  customers,  were  all  of  broken 
glass.  It  is  the  rattle  of  death,  not  of  life ;  no, 
rather  it  is  the  rustle  of  the  ermine  robe  of  Win- 
ter, as  he  passes  crystal-booted  down  his  crystal 
halls. 


If  winter  is  the  season  of  large  sounds,  it  is  also 
the  season  of  small  sounds,  for  it  is  the  season  of 
wide  silence  when  the  slightest  of  stirrings  can  be 
heard.  Three  of  these  small  sounds  you  must  listen 
for  this  winter :  the  smothered  tinkle-tunkle  of  water 
running  under  thin  ice,  as  where  the  brook  passes 
a  pebbly  shallow;  then  the  tick-ticU-ticTc  of  the 


THINGS   TO   HEAR   THIS   WINTER       125 

first  snowflakes  hitting  the  brown  leaves  on  a  for- 
est floor;  then  the  fine  sharp  scratch  of  a  curled 
and  toothed  beech  leaf  skating  before  a  noiseless 
breath  of  wind  over  the  crusty  snow.  Only  he  that 
hath  ears  will  hear  these  sounds,  speaking,  as  they 
do,  for  the  vast  voiceless  moments  of  the  winter 
world. 

VI 

I  have  not  heard  the  "  covey  call "  of  the  quail 
this  winter.  But  there  is  not  a  quail  left  alive  in  all 
the  fields  and  sprout-lands  within  sound  of  me. 
I  used  to  hear  them  here  on  Mullein  Hill ;  a  covey 
used  to  roost  down  the  wooded  hillside  in  front  of 
the  house ;  but  even  they  are  gone  —  hunted  out  of 
life ;  shot  and  eaten  off  of  my  small  world.  What 
a  horribly  hungry  animal  man  is  ! 

But  you  may  have  the  quail  still  in  your  fields. 
If  so,  then  go  out  toward  dusk  on  a  quiet,  snowy 
day,  especially  if  you  have  heard  shooting  in  the 
fields  that  day,  and  try  to  hear  some  one  of  the 
covey  calling  the  flock  together:  Whir-r-rl-ee ! 
Whir-r-rl-ee  !  Whirl-ee-gee  !  —  the  sweetest,  softest, 
tenderest  call  you  will  ever  hear ! 

VII 

And  you  certainly  do  have  chickadees  in  your 
woods.  If  so,  then  go  out  any  time  of  day,  but  go 
on  a  cold,  bleak,  blustery  day,  when  everything  is 


126  WINTER 

a-shiver,  and,  as  Uncle  Remus  would  say,  "  meet  up  " 
with  a  chickadee.  It  is  worth  having  a  winter,  just 
to  meet  a  chickadee  in  the  empty  woods  and  hear 
him  call  —  a  little  pin-point  of  live  sound,  an  un- 
daunted, unnumbed  voice  interrupting  the  thick 
jargon  of  the  winter  to  tell  you  that  all  this  bluster 
and  blow  and  biting  cold  can't  get  at  the  heart  of 
a  bird  that  must  weigh,  all  told,  with  all  his  winter 
feathers  on,  fully  —  an  ounce  or  two  ! 

VIII 

And  then  the  partridge  —  you  must  hear  him, 
bursting  like  a  bottled  hurricane  from  the  brown 
leaves  at  your  feet ! 

IX 

,  Among  the  sweet  winter  sounds,  that  are  as  good 
to  listen  to  as  the  songs  of  the  summer  birds,  you 
should  hear :  the  loud  joyous  cackling  of  the  hens 
on  a  sunny  January  day  ;  the  munching  of  horses  at 
night  when  the  wild  winds  are  whistling  about  the 
barn ;  the  quiet  hum  about  the  hives, — 

"When  come  the  calm  mild  days,  as  still  such  days  will  come, 
To  call  the  squirrel  and  the  bee  from  out  their  winter  home." 

And  then,  the  sound  of  the  first  rain  on  the  shingles 

—  the  first  February  rain  after  a  long  frozen  period  ! 
How  it  spatters  the  shingles  with  spring — spring 

—  spring  ! 


ONE  OF  THE  COVEY  CALLING  THE  FLOCK  TOGETHER 


128  WINTER 

X 

It  was  in  the  latter  end  of  December,  upon  a 
gloomy  day  that  was  heavy  with  the  oppression  of  a 
coming  storm.  In  the  heart  of  the  maple  swamp  all 
was  still  and  cold  and  dead.  Suddenly,  as  out  of  a 
tomb,  I  heard  the  small,  thin  cry  of  a  tiny  tree-frog. 
And  how  small  and  thin  it  sounded  in  the  vast 
silences  of  that  winter  swamp !  And  yet  how  clear 
and  ringing !  A  thrill  of  life  tingling  out  through 
the  numb,  nerveless  body  of  the  woods  that  has  ever 
since  made  a  dead  day  for  me  impossible. 

Have  you  heard  him  yet? 

XI 

"  After  all,"  says  some  one  of  our  writers,  "  it  is 
only  a  matter  of  which  side  of  the  tree  you  stand  on, 
whether  it  is  summer  or  winter."  Just  so.  But,  after 
all,  is  it  not  a  good  thing  to  stand  on  the  winter  side 
during  the  winter?  to  have  a  winter  while  we  have 
it,  and  then  have  spring?  No  shivering  around  on 
the  spring  side  of  the  tree  for  me.  I  will  button  up 
my  coat,  brace  my  back  against  the  winter  side  and 
shout  to  the  hoary  old  monarch  — 

"  And  there  's  a  hand,  my  trusty  fiere, 
And  gie  's  a  hand  o'  thine  ; " 

and  what  a  grip  he  has ! 


A 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    LAST    DAY    OF    WINTER 

CCORDING  to  the  almanac  March  21st  is 
the  last  day  of  winter.  The  almanac  is  not 
-  always  to  be  trusted  —  not  for  hay  weather, 
or  picnic  weather,  or  sailing  weather ;  but  you  can 
always  trust  it  for  March  21st  weather.  Whatever 
the  weather  man  at  Washington  predicts  about  it, 
whatever  comes,  —  snow,  sleet,  slush,  rain,  wind,  or 
frogs  and  sunshine,  —  March  21st  is  the  last  day 
of  winter. 

The  sun  "crosses  the  line"  that  day  ;  spring 
crosses  with  him;  and  I  cross  over  with  the 
spring. 

Let  it  snow  !  I  have  had  winter  enough.  Let  the 
wind  rage  !  It  cannot  turn  back  the  sun ;  it  cannot 
blow  away  the  "  equinoctial  line  "  ;  it  cannot  snow 
under  my  determination  to  have  done,  here  and 
now,  with  winter! 

The  sun  crosses  to  my  side  of  the  Equator  on  the 
21st  of  March  ;  there  is  nothing  in  the  universe  that 
can  stop  him.  I  cross  over  the  line  with  him;  and 
there  is  nothing  under  the  sun  that  can  stop  me. 
When  you  want  it  to.be  spring,  if  you  have  the  sun  on 
your  side  of  the  line  you  can  have  spring.  Hitching 


130  WINTER 

your  wagon  to  a  star  is  a  very  great  help  in  getting 
along  ;  but  having  the  big  sun  behind  you  — 

"  When  descends  on  the  Atlantic 

The  gigantic 
Storm-wind  of  the  equinox  " 

is  a  tremendous  help  in  ridding  you  of  a  slow  and, 
by  this  time,  wearisome  winter,  storm- wind  and 
all. 

Almanacs  are  not  much  to  trust  in ;  but  if  ever 
you  prize  one,  it  is  on  the  21st  of  March,  —  that  is, 
if  you  chance  to  live  in  New  England.  Yet  you  can 
get  along  without  the  almanac  —  even  in  New  Eng- 
land. Hang  it  up  under  the  corner  of  the  kitchen 
mantelpiece  and  come  out  with  me  into  the  March 
mud.  We  are  going  to  find  the  signs  of  spring, 
the  proofs  that  this  is  the  last  day  of  winter,  that 
the  sun  is  somewhere  in  the  heavens  and  on  this 
side  of  the  equatorial  line. 

Almanac  or  no,  and  with  all  other  signs  snowed 
under,  there  are  still  our  bones  !  Spring  is  in  our 
bones.  I  cannot  tell  you  how  it  gets  into  them, 
nor  describe  precisely  how  it  feels.  But,  then,  I  do 
not  need  to.  For  you  feel  it  in  your  bones  too  —  a 
light,  hollow  feeling,  as  if  your  bones  were  birds' 
bones,  and  as  if  you  could  flap  your  arms  and  fly! 

Only  that  you  feel  it  more  in  your  feet;  and  you 

will  start  and  run,  like  the  Jungle-folk,  like  Mowgli 

—  run,  run,  run!  Oh,  it  is  good  to  have  bones  in 

your  body,  young  bones  with  the  "  spring-running," 


THE   LAST   DAY   OF   WINTER  131 

in  their  joints,  instead  of  the  grit  of  rheumatism  to 
stiffen  and  cripple  you ! 

The  roads  are  barely  thawed.  The  raw  wind  is 
penetrating,  and  we  need  our  greatcoats  to  keep  out 
the  cold.  But  look  !  A  flock  of  robins  —  twenty  of 


them,  dashing  into  the  cedars,  their  brown  breasts 
glowing  warm  and  red  against  the  dull  sky  and  the 
dark  green  of  the  trees!  And  wait  —  before  we  go 
down  the  hill — here  behind  the  barn  —  no,  there 
he  dives  from  the  telephone  wire  —  Phoabe  !  He  has 
just  gotten  back,  and  is  simply  killing  time  now 
(and  insects  too),  waiting  for  Mrs.  Phoebe  to  ar- 
rive, and  housekeeping  to  begin. 

Don't  move  !  There  in  the  gray  clouds — two  soar- 
ing, circling  hen-hawks !  Kee-ee-you  !  Kee-ee-you  I 
Round  and  round  they  go,  their  shrill,  wild  whistle 
piercing  the  four  quarters  of  the  sky  and  tingling 
down  the  cold  spine  of  every  forest  tree  and  sapling, 
stirring  their  life  blood  until  it  seems  to  run  red  into 
their  tops. 

For  see  the  maple  swamp  off  yonder  —  the  ashy 


132 


WINTER 


gray  of  the  boles,  a  cold  steel-color  two  thirds  of  the 
way  toward  the  top,  but  there  changing  into  a  faint 
garnet,  a  flush  of  warmth  and  life  that  seems  almost 
to  have  come  since  morning  ! 

Let  us  go  on  now,  for  I  want  to  get  some  water- 
cress from  the  brook  —  the  first 

a 

green  growing  thing  for    the 


—  and 


some 


were  shining  I  should  take  you  by  way  of  the  bee- 
hives to  show  you,  dropping  down  before  their  open 
doors,  a  few  eager  bees  bringing  home  baskets  of 
pollen  from  the  catkins  of  the  hazeluut  bushes.  The 
hazelnut  bushes  are  in  bloom !  Yes,  in  bloom !  No, 
the  skunk-cabbages  are  not  out  yet,  nor  the  he- 
paticas,  nor  the  arbutus ;  but  the  hazelnut  bushes 
are  in  bloom,  and  —  see  here,  under  the  rye  straw 


THE   LAST   DAY   OF   WINTER 


133 


that  covers  the  strawberry-bed  —  a  small  spreading 
weed,  green,  and  cheerily  starred  with  tiny  white 
flowers ! 

It  is  the  21st  of  March ;  the  sun  has  crossed  the 
line  ;  the  phcebes  have  returned  ;  and  here  under  the 


straw  in  the  gar- 
den the  chickweed, — 
starwort,  —  first  of  the  flowers, 
is  in  blossom  ! 

But  come  on ;  I  am  not  going 
back  yet.  This  is  the  last  day  of  winter. 
Cold  ?   Yes,  it  is  cold,  raw,  wretched, 
gloomy,  with  snow  still  in  the  woods, 
with  frost  still  in  the  ground,  and  with 
not  a  frog  or  hyla  anywhere  to  be  heard. 
But  come  along.  This  is  the  last  day  of 
winter  —  of  winter?   No,  no,  it  is  the  first  day  of 
spring.  Robins  back,  phcebes  back,  watercress  for  the 
table,  chickweed  in  blossom,  and  a  bird's  nest  with 
eggs  in  it!  Winter  ?  Spring?  Birds'  eggs,  did  I  say? 
The  almanac  is  mixed  again.  It  always  is.   Who 's 
Who  in  the  Seasons  when  all  of  this  is  happening 


134  WINTER 

on  the  21st  of  March?   For  here  is  the  bird's  nest 
with  eggs  in  it,  just  as  I  said. 

Watch  the  hole  up  under  that  stub  of  a  limb  while 
I  tap  on  the  trunk.  How  sound  asleep!  But  I  will 
wake  them.  Rap-rap-rap  !  There  he  comes — the 
big  barred  owl ! 

o 

Climb  up  and  take  a  peek  at  the  eggs,  but  don't  you 
dare  to  touch  them !  Of  course  you  will  not.  I  need 
not  have  been  so  quick  and  severe  in  my  command ; 
for,  if  we  of  this  generation  do  not  know  as  much 
about  some  things  as  our  fathers  knew,  we  do  at  least 
know  better  than  they  that  the  owls  are  among  our 
best  friends  and  are  to  be  most  jealously  protected. 

Climb  up,  I  say,  and  take  a  peek  at  those  round 
white  eggs,  and  tell  me,  Is  it  spring  or  winter?  Is 
it  the  last  day,  or  the  first  day,  or  the  first  and  last 
in  one  ?  What  a  high  mix-up  is  the  weather  —  espe- 
cially this  New  England  sort ! 

But  look  at  that !  A  snowflake!  Yes,  it  is  begin- 
ning to  snow  —  with  the  sun  crossing  the  line!  It  is 
beginning  to  snow,  and  down  with  the  first  flakes, 
like  a  bit  of  summer  sky  drops  a  bluebird,  calling 
softly,  sweetly,  with  notes  that  melt  warm  as  sunshine 
into  our  hearts. 

"  For,  lo,  the  winter  is  past,  the  rain  is  over  and 
gone."  But  see  how  it  snows !  Yes,  but  see  — 

The  willows  gleam  with  silver  light; 

The  maples  crimson  glow  — 
The  first  faint  streaks  on  winter's  east, 

Far-off  and  low. 


THE   LAST   DAY  OF   WINTER 

The  northward  geese,  with  winged  wedge, 

Have  split  the  frozen  skies, 
And  called  the  way  for  weaker  wings, 

Where  midnight  lies. 

To-day  a  warm  wind  wakes  the  marsh; 

I  hear  the  hylas  peep 
And  o'er  the  pebbly  ford,  unbound, 

The  waters  leap. 

The  lambs  bleat  from  the  sheltered  folds  ; 

Low  whispers  spread  the  hills  : 
The  rustle  of  the  spring's  soft  robes 

The  forest  fills. 

The  night,  ah  me!  fierce  flies  the  storm 

Across  the  dark  dead  wold; 
The  swift  snow  swirls;  and  silence  falls 

On  stream  and  fold. 

All  white  and  still  lie  stream  and  hill  — 

The  winter  dread  and  drear  ! 
Then  from  the  skies  a  bluebird  flies 

And  —  spring  is  here! 


135 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS 

CHAPTER  I 

TO   THE  TEACHER 

"  It  must  be  a  lovely  place  in  the  summer  !  "  the  dull  and  irritating 
often  say  to  me,  referring  to  my  home  in  the  country.  What  they 
mean  is,  of  course,  "  How  wretched  a  place  the  country  is  in  winter  ! " 
But  that  attitude  toward  winter  grows  less  and  less  common.  We 
are  learning  how  to  enjoy  the  winter;  and  it  is  my  hope  that  this 
volume  may  distinctly  contribute  to  the  knowledge  that  makes  for 
that  joy.  Behind  such  joy  is  love,  and  behind  the  love  is  understand- 
ing, and  behind  the  understanding  is  knowledge. 

The  trouble  with  those  who  say  they  hate  winter  is  a  lack  of  knowl- 
edge. They  do  not  know  the  winter  ;  they  never  tramp  the  woods 
and  fields  in  winter;  they  have  no  calendar  of  the  rare,  the  high- 
festival  days  of  winter. 

Such  a  day  is  the  one  of  this  opening  chapter  —  "  Hunting  the 
Snow."  And  the  winter  is  full  of  them;  as  full  as  the  summer,  I  had 
almost  said!  The  possibilities  of  winter  for  nature-study,  for  tramps 
afield,  for  outdoor  sport  —  for  joy  and  health  and  knowledge  and 
poetry  are  quite  as  good  as  those  of  summer.  Try  it  this  winter. 
Indeed,  let  the  coldest,  dullest,  deadest  day  this  winter  challenge  you 
to  discover  to  yourself  and  to  your  pupils  some  sight,  some  sound, 
some  happening,  or  some  thought  of  the  world  outside  that  shall  add 
to  their  small  understanding,  or  touch  their  ready  imaginations, 
or  awaken  their  eager  love  for  Nature. 

And  do  not  let  the  rarer  winter  days  pass  (such  as  the  day  that 
follows  the  first  snow-fall)  without  your  taking  them  or  sending 
them  a-hunting  the  snow,  else  you  will  fail  in  duty  as  grievously  as 
you  would  if  you  allowed  a  child  to  finish  his  public-school  educa- 
tion without  hearing  of  Bunker  Hill. 

In  reading  this  first  chapter  lay  emphasis  upon  :  (1)  the  real  ex- 
citement possible  without  a  gun  in  such  a  hunt;  (2)  the  keener,  higher 


138  WINTER 

kind  of  joy  in  watching  a  live  animal  than  in  killing  it;  (3)  the  un- 
fairness of  hunting  to  kill ;  (4)  the  rapid  extinction  of  our  wild  ani- 
mals, largely  caused  by  guns  ;  (5)  the  necessity  now  for  protection  — 
for  every  pupil's  doing  all  he  can  to  protect  wild  life  everywhere. 


FOR  THE   PUPIL 

Study  the  drawings  of  the  tracks  in  this  chapter,  then  go  into  the 
woods  and  try  to  identify  the  tracks  you  find  in  the  snow.  Every 
track  you  discover  and  identify  will  be  quarry  in  your  bag  —  just  as 
truly  as  though  you  had  killed  a  deer  or  a  moose  or  a  bear.  You  can 
all  turn  snow-hunters  without  leaving  blood  and  pain  and  death  and 
emptiness  and  silence  behind  you.  And  it  is  just  as  good  and  excit- 
ing sport. 
PAGE  4 

cushion-marked  holes :  Examine  a  cat's  feet.  Make  a  study  of  cat 
tracks:  how  they  are  placed  ;  how  wide  apart  ;  how  they  look 
when  she  walks,  when  she  runs,  when  she  jumps,  when  she  gathers 
herself  together  for  a  spring.  You  can  learn  the  art  of  snow-hunt- 
ing by  studying  the  tracks  of  the  cat  in  your  own  dooryards. 
wood  pussy :  a  polite  name  in  New  England  for  the  skunk. 
PAGE  5 

the  great  northern  hare :  The  northern  hare  is  not  often  seen  here, 
and  I  am  not  sure  but  that  this  may  be  the  common  brown  rabbit. 
PAGES 

slashings :  The  name  for  the  waste  limbs  and  tops  left  after  cut- 
ting forest  trees.  Tree  wardens  should  compel  the  woodchoppers 
to  pile  this  brush  up  as  they  cut  and  burn  it  while  the  snow  is  on 
the  ground  to  prevent  forest  fires  in  summer. 
hazelnuts  :  small  brown  nuts  like  the  filberts  of  the  stores.  They 
grow  on  a  bush  two  to  six  feet  high.  There  are  two  kinds,  — 
common  hazelnut  and  beaked  hazelnut.  The  green  husk  looks 
like  a  cap,  hence  its  Saxon  name  haesle,  a  cap,  and  the  scientific 
name  Corylus  from  the  Greek  corys,  a  helmet. 
PAGE  9 

Burns :  Robert  Burns,  the  Scotch  poet. 
PAGE  10 

root  and  all,  and  all  in  all :  from  a  poem  by  Lord  Tennyson  called 
"Flower  in  the  Crannied  Wall." 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  139 

PAGE  11 

Atalanta's  race :  Look  up  the  story  of  the  beautiful  girl  runner  who 
lost  her  race  with  her  lover  because  of  her  desire  to  pick  up  a 
golden  apple. 
PAGE  14 

Two  mighty  wings:  an  owl's  wing  marks,  perhaps  the  barred  owl 
or  the  great  horned  owl,  or  the  snowy  owl,  which  sometimes  comes 
down  from  the  north  in  the  winter. 

CHAPTER  II 

TO   THE  TEACHER 

This  herding  and  driving  of  turkeys  to  market  is  common  in  other 
sections  of  the  country,  particularly  in  Kentucky.  I  have  told  the 
story  (as  told  to  me  by  one  who  saw  the  flock)  in  order  to  bring  out 
the  force  of  instinct  and  habit,  and  the  unreasoning  nature  of  the 
animal  mind  as  compared  with  man's. 

FOR  THE  PUPIL- 
PAGE  15 

Shepherd-dog :  Only  a  well-trained  dog  would  do,  for  turkeys  are 

very  timid  and  greatly  afraid  of  a  strange  dog. 
PAGE  18 

Black  Creek :  a  local  name ;  not  in  the  Geography. 
PAGE  26 

a  chorus  of  answering  gobbles :  Turkeys  will  follow  their  leader. 

It  was  this  habit  or  trait  that  the  boys  now  made  use  of. 

CHAPTER  III 

TO   THE  TEACHER 

There  is  a  three-pronged  point  to  this  chapter  :  (1)  the  empty 
birds'  nests  are  not  things  to  mourn  over.  The  birds  are  safe  and 
warm  down  south;  and  they  will  build  fresh,  clean  nests  when  they 
get  back.  Teach  your  children  to  see  things  as  they  are  —  the  whole- 
someness,  naturalness,  wisdom,  and  poetry  of  Nature's  arrangement. 
The  poets  are  often  sentimental;  and  most  sentimentality  is  entirely 


140  WINTER 

misplaced.  (2)  The  nest  abandoned  by  the  bird  may  be  taken  up  by 
the  mouse.  The  deadest,  commonest  of  things  may  prove  full  of  life 
and  interest  upon  close  observation.  Summer  may  go  ;  but  winter 
comes  and  brings  its  own  interests  and  rewards.  So  does  youth  go 
and  old  age  come.  There  is  nothing  really  abandoned  in  nature  — 
nothing  utterly  lacking  interest.  (3)  A  mouse  is  not  a  Bengal  tiger; 
but  he  is  a  whole  mouse  and  in  the  completeness  of  his  life  just  as  large 
and  interesting  as  the  tiger.  If  the  small,  the  common,  the  things 
right  at  hand,  are  not  interesting,  it  is  not  their  fault  —  not  the  mouse's 
fault  —  but  ours. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  30 

white-foot:  the  deer,  or  wood  mouse  (Peromyscus  leucopus). 
PAGE  32 

"  There  are  no  birds  in  last  year's  nest"  :  a  line  from  a  poem  by 

Longfellow  called  "  It  is  not  always  May." 
PAGE  33 

Darwin's  book  on  earthworms :  Read  in  this  book  how  the  worms 

make  garden  soil. 

CHAPTER  IV 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

If  you  have  at  hand  "  The  Fall  of  the  Year,"  read  again  the  sug- 
gestions on  page  112  for  the  chapter  on  "  Things  to  See  this  Fall," 
making  use  of  this  chapter  as  you  did  of  that  (1)  as  the  object  of  a 
field  excursion  —  or  of  several  excursions  until  all  the  things  sug- 
gested here  have  been  seen;  (2)  as  a  test  of  the  pupil's  actual  study 
of  nature;  for  there  is  scarcely  a  city  child  who  cannot  get  far  enough 
into  nature  (though  he  get  no  farther  than  the  city  park),  and  often 
enough  to  see  most  of  the  things  pointed  out  in  this  chapter;  (3)  as 
suggestions  for  further  study  and  observation  by  the  pupils  —  things 
that  they  have  seen  which  might  be  added  to  these  ten  here,  and 
written  about  for  composition  work  in  English. 

FOR  THE  PUPIL 

Here  are  ten  different  things  for  you  to  see  this  winter,  and  most 
of  them,  whether  you  live  in  the  city  or  country,  you  can  see,  pro- 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  141 

vided  you  live  where  the  snow  falls.  But  you  will  have  some  kind  of 
a  winter  no  matter  where  you  live.  Don't  miss  it — its  storms,  its 
birds,  its  animals,  its  coasting,  skating,  siiowshoeing,  its  invitations 
to  tramp  the  frozen  marshes  and  deep  swamps  where  you  cannot  go 
in  the  summer,  and  where,  on  the  snow  you  will  catch  many  a  glimpse 
of  wild  life  that  the  rank  summer  sedges  will  never  reveal.  Don't 
stop  with  these  ten  suggestions  ;  there  are  a  hundred  other  in- 
teresting things  to  see.  And  as  you  see  them,  write  about  them. 

CHAPTER  V 

TO    THE   TEACHER 

Let  this  chapter  be  read  very  close  to  the  Christmas  recess,  when 
your  children's  minds  are  full  of  Christmas  thoughts.  This  uncon- 
ventional turn  to  the  woods,  this  thought  of  Christmas  among  the  ani- 
mals and  birds,  might  easily  be  the  means  of  awakening  many  to  an 
understanding  of  the  deeper,  spiritual  side  of  nature-study  —  that 
we  find  in  Nature  only  what  we  take  to  her;  that  we  get  back  only 
what  we  give.  It  will  be  easy  for  them  to  take  the  spirit  of  Christ- 
mas into  the  woods  because  they  are  so  full  of  it ;  and  so  it  will  be 
easy  for  them  to  feel  the  woods  giving  it  back  to  them  —  the  very 
last  and  best  reward  of  nature-study.  No,  don't  be  afraid  that  they 
are  incapable  of  such  lessons,  of  such  thoughts  and  emotions.  Some 
few  may  be;  but  no  teacher  ever  yet  erred  by  too  much  faith  in  the 
capacity  of  her  pupils  for  the  higher,  deeper  things. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

PAGE  46 

These  lines  of  poetry  you  all  know  But  who  can  tell  who  wrote 
them?  Where  did  he  live  and  when? 

gum  swamp :  See  description  of  such  a  swamp  on  pages  262-263 
of  the  author's  "  Wild  Life  Near  Home."  This  is  the  tree  known 
as  sour  gum,  more  properly  tupelo  (Nyssa  sylvatica  or  uniftora). 
cardinal  grosbeak:  Commonly  called  "cardinal,"  or  "  redbird." 

PAGE  47 

Holy  Day :  What  was  the  oldest  form  of  our  word  "  holiday  "  ? 
ilex:  Ilex  verticillata,  the  black  alder,  or  winterberry,  one  of  the  holly 
family.  A  low  swamp  bush  covered  with  red  berries  all  winter. 


142  WINTER 

PAGE  48 

Lupton's  Pond:  A  little  pond  along  Cohansey  Creek  near  Bridge- 
ton,  N.  J. 
Persimmon  trees:  found  from  New  Haven,  Conn.,  to  Florida. 

PAGE  50 

Bob  Cratchit's  goose :  There  never  was  such  a  goose,  as  you  all 
know  who  have  read  Dickens's  "  Christmas  Carol," 

PAGE  52   - 

liquid  amber :  The  balsamic  juice  of  the  sweet  gum  tree,  some- 
times called  "  bilsted  "  (Liquidambar  styraciflucf),  a  large,  beautiful 
swamp  tree  found  from  Connecticut  to  Florida  and  west  to  Texas, 

PAGE  53 

half-human  tracks  :  Because  the  coon  is  a  relative  of  the  bears  and 
has  a  long  hind  foot  that  leaves  a  track  much  like  that  of  a  small 
baby. 

PAGE  54 

tupelo  :  See  note  on  gum  swamp,  page  141. 
sour  gums :  same  as  tupelo. 

PAGE  55 

chicken  or  frost  grapes:  Vitis  cordifolia:  the  smallest,  sourest,  best 
(boy  standards)  of  all  our  wild  grapes.  They  ripen  after  the  frost 
and  feed  the  boys  and  birds  when  all  other  such  fruits  have  gone 
from  the  woods. 

Smooth  winterberry :  is  really  another  ilex,  Ilex  Icevigata,  a  larger 
bush  than  Ilex  verticillata,  the  black  alder  or  winterberry. 

PAGE  56 

Fox  sparrows :  See  the  frontispiece.  The  largest,  most  beautiful 
of  our  sparrows.  Nests  in  the  Far  North.  A  migrant  to  New  Eng- 
land and  the  Southern  States. 

PAGE  59 

The  crows  were  winging  over  toward  their  great  roost :  Don't  fail  this 
winter  to  spend,  if  not  Christmas  Day,  then  one  of  your  Christmas 
vacation  days,  in  the  woods,  from  morning  until  the  crows  go  over 
to  their  roost.  You  will  never  forget  that  day. 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  143 

CHAPTER  VI 

TO   THE  TEACHER 

Read  to  the  pupils  Emerson's  poem  "  The  Titmouse,"  dwelling  on 

the  lines,  — 

"  Here  was  this  atom  in  full  breath, 
Hurling  defiance  at  vast  death,"  etc. 

and  the  part  beginning, — 

44  'Tis  good  will  makes  intelligence," 
letting  the  students  learn  by  heart  the  chickadee's  little  song,  — 

"  Live  out  of  doors 
In  the  great  woods,  on  prairie  floors,"  etc. 

Poem  and  chapter  ought  mutually  to  help  each  other.  Read  the 
chapter  slowly,  explaining  clearly  as  you  go  on,  making  it  finally  plain 
that  this  mere  "  atom  "  of  life  is  greater  than  all  the  winter  death,  no 
matter  how  "  vast." 

FOR  THE  PUPIL 
PAGE  64 

"  The  Lilac  " :  My  lilac  bush  with  its  suet  has  become  a  kind  of 
hotel,  or  inn,  or  boarding-house,  for  the  chickadees. 

PAGE  66 

Phce-ee-bee!  more  often  the  spring  call  than  the  winter  call  of 
Chickadee.  It  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the  "  phce'be  "  call  of  the 
phcfibe,  the  flycatcher,  by  its  greater  softness  and  purity,  and  by 
its  very  distinct  middle  syllable,  as  if  Chickadee  said  "  Phce' —  ee 
—  bee."  Phoebe's  note  is  two-syllabled. 

PAGE  67 

protective  coloration  :  a  favorite  term  with  Darwin  and  many  later 
naturalists  to  describe  the  wonderful  harmony  in  the  colors  of 
animals,  insects,  etc.,«nd  their  natural  surroundings,  the  animal's 
color  blending  so  perfectly  into  the  color  of  its  surroundings  as 
to  be  a  protection  to  the  creature. 

PAGE  69 

card  house :  as  if  made  of  cards,  easily  pushed,  even  blown  down. 

PAGE  70 

the  workman's  chips  :  Look  on  the  ground  under  a  newly  excavated 
woodpecker's  hole,  and  you  will  find  his  "  chips." 


144  WINTER 

PAGE  73 

a  tiny  window :  The  tough  birch-bark  would  bend  readily.  I  would 
shut  the  window  in  leaving  by  means  of  a  long,  sharp  thorn. 

CHAPTER  VII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Make  a  point  of  going  into  the  winter  woods  and  fields,  taking  the 
pupils  as  often  as  possible  with  you.  It  may  be  impossible  for  your 
city  children  to  get  the  rare  chance  of  glare  ice ;  but  don't  miss  it  if 
it  comes. 

This  is  the  time  to  start  your  bird-study  ;  to  awaken  sympathy  and 
responsibility  in  your  pupils  by  teaching  them  to  feed  the  birds  ;  to 
cultivate  cheerfulness  and  the  love  of  "  hardness  "  in  them  by  breast- 
ing with  them  a  bitter  winter  gale  for  the  pure  joy  of  it.  Use  the  sug- 
gestions here  for  whatever  of  resourcefulness  and  hardiness  you  can 
cultivate  in  the  girls  as  well  as  in  the  boys. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  79 

the  good  things  to  read :  To  name  only  a  few  of  them,  we  might 
mention  John  Burroughs's  "Winter  Sunshine  "and  "  Squirrels  and 
Other  Fur-Bearers,"  Bradford  Torrey's  "  Footing  it  in  Franconia," 
Frank  Bolles's  "  At  the  North  of  Bearcamp  Water,"  William 
Hamilton  Gibson's  "  Eye  Spy,"  William  L.  Finley's  "  American 
Birds,"  and  Edward  Breck's  "  Wilderness  Pets." 

CHAPTER  VIII 

TO   THE  TEACHEJl 

I  believe  this  to  be  one  of  the  most  important  chapters  in  the  vol- 
ume, dark  and  terrible  as  its  lesson  may  appear.  But  grim,  dark  death 
itself  is  not  so  dark  as  fear  of  the  truth.  If  you  teach  nothing  else,  by 
precept  and  example,  teach  love  for  the  truth  —  for  the  whole  truth 
in  nature  as  everywhere  else.  Winter  is  a  fact;  let  us  face  it.  Death 
is  a  fact;  let  us  face  it  ;  and  by  facing  it  half  of  its  terror  will  disap- 
pear ;  nay  more,  for  something  of  its  deep  reasonableness  and  mean- 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  145 

ing  will  begin  to  appear,  and  we  shall  be  no  more  afraid.  The  all  of 
this  is  beyond  a  child,  as  it  is  beyond  us;  but  the  habit  of  looking 
honestly  and  fearlessly  at  things  must  be  part  of  a  child's  education, 
as  later  on  it  must  be  the  very  sum  of  it. 

Great  tact  and  fine  feeling  must  be  exercised  if  you  happen  to 
have  among  the  scholars  one  of  the  handicapped  —  one  lacking  any 
part,  as  the  muskrat  lacked  —  lest  the  application  be  taken  personally. 
But  let  the  lesson  be  driven  home  :  the  need  every  boy  and  girl  has 
for  a  strong,  f ull-membered  body,  —  even  for  every  one  of  his  teeth, 
—  if  he  is  to  live  at  his  physical  best. 

FOR  THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  83 

incisor  teeth :   the  four  long  front   teeth  of   the   rodents,  —  rats, 

mice,  beavers,  etc.  These  incisor  teeth,  are  heavily  enameled  with 

a  sharp  cutting  edge  and  keep  growing  continuously. 
PAGE  85 

voles:  meadow  mice. 
PAGE  86 

chimney  swallows :  more  properly  swifts ;  as  these  birds  do  not 

belong  to  the  swallow  family  at  all. 

vermin :  The  swifts  are  generally  infested  with  vermin. 
PAGE  91 

clapper  rails  :  or  marsh-hens  (Rallus  crepitans). 
PAGE  92 

"Listening  the  doors  an'  winnocks  rattle" :  lines  from  Burns's  "A 

Winter  Night." 

CHAPTER   IX 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Make  this  chapter,  as  far  as  you  can,  the  one  in  the  volume  for 
most  intensive  study.  Show  the  pupils  how  the  study  of  animal  life  is 
connected  with  geology,  tell  them  of  the  record  of  life  in  the  fossils  of 
the  rocks,  the  kinds  of  strange  beasts  that  once  inhabited  the  earth. 
Show  them  again  how  the  study  of  animals  in  their  anatomy  is  not 
the  study  of  one —  say  of  man,  but  how  man  and  all  the  mammals, 
the  reptiles,  the  birds,  the  fishes,  the  insects,  on  and  on  back  to  the 


146  WINTER 

single-celled  amceba,  are  all  related  to  each  other,  all  links  in  one 
long  wonder  chain  of  life. 


FOB   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  94 

Charles  Lamb :  Look  up  his  life  in  the  Encyclopedia.    Head  for 

yourselves  his  essay  ou  Roast  Pig. 

modus  edibllis :  the  Latin  for  "  manner  of  eating." 

PAGE  95 

the  'possum's  relations :  They  are  the  marsupials,  the  pouched  ani- 
mals, like  the  kangaroo. 

PAGE  98 

reptilian  age :  one  of  the  great  geological  ages  or  eras,  known  to 
the  geologists  as  the  great  mesozoic  or  "  middle  "  epoch,  when 
reptiles  ruled  the  land  and  sea. 

PAGE  103 

smiles  at  you — grins ;  Read  the  account  of  this  habit  in  the  open- 
ing chapter  of  the  author's  "Wild  Life  Near  Home." 


CHAPTER  X 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

This  chapter  and  the  next  go  together  —  this  for  the  lover  of  wild 
life,  the  next  for  the  lover  of  adventure.  The  spring  freshet  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  of  the  year  of  days  for  animal  study  —  better  even 
than  the  day  after  the  first  snowfall.  But  more  than  this,  let  both 
chapters  suggest  to  you  how  primitive  and  elemental  the  real  world  is 
after  all ;  with  what  cataclysmal  forces  the  seasons  are  changed.  As 
summer  often  passes  into  autumn  with  a  silencing  frost  that  rests  like 
a  hush  of  awe  over  the  land  ;  so  winter  often  gives  way  to  spring  with  a 
rush  of  wind  and  tidal  powers  that  seem  to  shake  the  foundations  of 
the  world.  To  feel  these  forces,  to  be  a  part  of  all  these  moods,  to 
share  in  all  these  feelings  —  this,  too,  is  one  of  the  ends  of  nature- 
study. 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  147 

CHAPTER  XII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

I  should  like  to  repeat  here  the  suggestions  in  "  The  Fall  of  the 
Year  "  for  this  corresponding  chapter.  I  will  repeat  only:  "that  you 
are  the  teacher,  not  the  book.  The  book  is  but  a  suggestion.  You 
begin* where  it  leaves  off  ;  you  fill  out  where  it  is  lacking."  For  these 
are  not  all  the  sounds  of  winter  ;  indeed  they  may  not  be  the  charac- 
teristic sounds  in  your  neighborhood.  No  matter  :  the  lesson  is  not 
this  or  that  sound,  but  that  your  pupils  learn  to  listen  for  sounds,  for 
the  voices  of  the  season,  whatever  those  voices  may  be  in  their 
own  particular  region.  The  trouble  is  that  we  have  ears,  and  literally 
hear  not,  eyes  and  see  not,  souls  and  feel  not.  Teach  your  pupils  to 
use  their  eyes,  ears,  yes  and  hearts,  and  all  things  else  will  be  added 
unto  them  in  the  way  of  education. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 


It  is  the  stilling  of  the  insects  that  makes  for  the  first  of  these 
silences  ;  the  hushing  of  the  winds  the  second  ;  the  magic  touch  of 
the  cold  the  third. 

II 

The  voice  of  the  great  spring  storm  should  be  added  to  these,  and 
the  shriek  of  the  wind  about  the  house. 

Ill 

You  should  not  only  hear,  but  you  should  also  feel  this  split  — 
passing  with  a  thrilling  shock  beneath  your  feet. 


How  many  other  of  the  small  voices  do  you  know  ?  The  chirp  of 

the  kinglets  ;  the  scratching  of  mice  in  a  shock  of  corn  ;  the 

but  you  write  a  story  about  them.  So  listen  for  yourself. 

VI 

Do  all  you  can  to  preserve  the  quail.  Don't  shoot. 


148  WINTER 

VIII 

Along  toward  spring  you  should  hear  him  "  drumming "  for  a 
mate  —  a  rapid  motion  of  his  wings  much  like  the  hollow  sound  of  a 
distant  drum. 

CHAPTER  XIII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Do  all  that  you  can  to  teach  the  signs  of  the  zodiac,  the  days  of  the 
seasons,  and  all  the  doings  of  the  astronomical  year.  All  that  old  lore 
of  the  skies  is  in  danger  of  being  lost.  Some  readers  will  say  :  "  The 
author  is  not  consistent !  He  loves  the  winter  and  here  he  is  impa- 
tient to  be  done  with  it  ! "  Some  explanation  on  your  part  may  be 
necessary  :  that  the  call  of  the  spring  is  the  call  of  life,  a  call  so  loud 
and  strong  that  all  life  —  human  and  wild,  animal  and  vegetable,  — 
hears  it  and  is  impatient  to  obey.  If  possible  take  your  scholars  upon 
a  walk  at  this  raw  edge  of  the  season  when  they  will  feel  the  chill  but 
also  the  stirring  of  life  all  about  them. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

Get  an  almanac  and  study  the  old  weather  signs. 
PAGE  130 

"  When  descends  on  the  Atlantic  "  :  from  Longfellow's  "  Seaweed." 
PAGE  133 

frog  or  hyla :  The  hylas  belong  to  the  family  Hylidce  and  include 

our  tree-toad,  and  our  little  tree-frog. 

"For,  lo,  the  winter  is  past" :  from  The  Song  of  Songs,  or  The 

Song  of  Solomon,  in  the  Bible. 


(Orbe  ftfofltffe 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
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